The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
