The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
