The exciting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million 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 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
