The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
