The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
