The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
