The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
