The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
