The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
