The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
