The thrilling extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as 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 previous Game 7 featuring 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, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
