The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership 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 averaged over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
