World Series Final Game Attracts 51M Viewers Across the United States, Canada and Japanese Markets.
The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
