The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
