The exciting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
