The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
