The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
