The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
