The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
