The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
