The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M 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 recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
