The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
