The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.