The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
