The exciting extended contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
