The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
