The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
