The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB stated this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’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 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
