The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
