The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
