The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
