The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
