The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
