The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
