The exciting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
