The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
