The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
