The exciting extended matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
