The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
