The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
