The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their 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 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
