The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
