The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
