The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
