The exciting extended matchup where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 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 recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. 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 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
