The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
