The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
