The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
