The exciting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
