The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
