The exciting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
