The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
