The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
