The thrilling extended clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
