The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
