The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
