The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
