The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
