The thrilling extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
