The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
