The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
