The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
