The exciting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
