The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
