The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
