World Series Game 7 Attracts 51 Million Viewers In the United States, Canada and Japanese Markets.
The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
