The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
