The thrilling extended matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
