The exciting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
