The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
