The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers 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 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
