The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
