The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
