The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
