The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
