The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
