The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
