The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
