The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
