The exciting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
