The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
