The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
