The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
