The nail-biting extended clash where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is 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 improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
