The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
