The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
