The exciting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
