The thrilling extended contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
