The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
