The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 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 World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
