The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
