The exciting extended clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan 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 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
