The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
