The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
