The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
