The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
