The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
