The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
