The exciting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
