The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
