The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
