The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
