The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
