The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
