The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
