The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
