The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
