The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
