The exciting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
