The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
