The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent 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 consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
