The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
