The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
