The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started 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 one run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
