The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. 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 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
