The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
