The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
