The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
