The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
