The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
