The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average 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 complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
