The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
