The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
