The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
