The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, 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 frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
