The exciting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
