World Series Game 7 Draws 51M Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The exciting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’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 forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.