The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
