The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
