The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
