The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
