The exciting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
