The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
