World Series Game 7 Captures Over 50 Million Audience Members Across the United States, Canada and Japanese Markets.
The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as 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 over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.