The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
