The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
