The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.