The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
