The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
