The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
