The exciting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
