The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
