The exciting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
