The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
