The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
