The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
