The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
