The exciting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
