The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
