The thrilling extended contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
