The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
