The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.