The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
