The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
