The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
