The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
