The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 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 additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
