The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
