The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
