The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
