The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
