The exciting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
