The thrilling extended matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
