The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. 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 drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
