The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
