The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
