The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
