The exciting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
