The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
