The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
