The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
