The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
