The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and 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 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
