The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
