The exciting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
