The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
