The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 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 viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
