The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
