The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
