The exciting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
