The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
