The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
