The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
