The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game between 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 Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
