The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per 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 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
