The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
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 program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
