The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
