The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase 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 consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
