The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
