The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
