The thrilling extended contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
