The exciting extended contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
