The exciting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
