The exciting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
