The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
