The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
