The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
