The exciting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
