The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
