The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
