The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
