The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
