The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
