The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
