The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series 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 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
