The exciting extended clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
