The exciting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
