The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
