The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 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 World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
