The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
