The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
