The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
