The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time 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 total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
