The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
