The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
