The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
