The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to 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 Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
