The thrilling extended matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
