The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
