The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
