The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
