The thrilling extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
