The exciting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
