The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
