The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
