The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
