The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
