The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan 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 last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
