The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
