The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
