The exciting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
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 series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
