The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
