The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
