The exciting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
