The exciting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
