The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
