The thrilling extended clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
