The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
