The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
