The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
