Fall Classic Game 7 Attracts 51 Million Audience Members In the United States, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
