The exciting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
