The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
