The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
