The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase 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 consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
