The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
