The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
