The exciting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
