The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
