The thrilling extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
