The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete 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 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
