The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
