The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
