The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
