The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
