The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
