The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
