The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
