The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
