The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
