The exciting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
