The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership 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 watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
