The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
