The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
