The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
