The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.