The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
