The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
