The exciting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
