The exciting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global 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 most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
