The thrilling extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
