The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
