The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
