The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
