The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
