The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
