The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
