The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
