The thrilling extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
