The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
