The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.