The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
