The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
