The exciting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.