The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
