The nail-biting extended clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
