The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
