The exciting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
