The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
