The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
