The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
