The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
