The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
