The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
