The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
