The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
