The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
