The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
