The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
