The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
