The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu 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 Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
