The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
