The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
