The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
