The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
