The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
