The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
