The thrilling extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
