The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
