The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
