The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
