The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
