The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
