The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
