The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
