The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
