The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
