The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
