The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
