The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
