The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks 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 total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
