The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
