The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
