The thrilling extended matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
