When you talk to sports television executives about what they root for when it comes to the postseason, it’s never a specific team and often not a specific matchup. What they root for is length. There are no better words for those at ESPN, Fox Sports, and CBS Sports etc. … than Game 7.
Over the last two weeks, Fox was gifted one of the best World Series in history, including a titanic Game 7 that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers repeat in historic fashion with a 5-4 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays in 11 innings. The result was some of MLB’s best viewership numbers in years. Let’s take a look at the final numbers.
• Game 7 finished with a final viewership average of 27.330 million viewers across Fox, Fox Deportes and Fox Sports streaming platforms. It was the most-watched World Series game since Game 7 in 2017 between the Astros and Dodgers, which averaged 29.1 million viewers.
• Viewership peaked at 33.1 million viewers between 11:45 p.m. ET and 12 a.m. ET of Game 7.
• The entire 2025 World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers. That was the best average viewership for a World Series since 2017, when Houston and L.A. played a seven-game series that averaged 18.9 million viewers. This year’s World Series was up two percent over last year’s five-game Dodgers-New York Yankees series.
•The top five markets based on household ratings (as opposed to average viewership) were 1. Los Angeles; 2. San Diego; 3. Seattle; 4. St. Louis and 5. Milwaukee.
• Sports Media Watch noted that Game 7 was the largest Saturday live sports audience — excluding the NFL and the Olympics — since the Yankees clinched the 1996 World Series against the Atlanta Braves (30.44 million).
• In Canada, Sportsnet said Game 7 averaged 10.9 million viewers between Sportsnet, Sportsnet+ and Citytv. It is the most-watched English-language broadcast on record in Canada outside of the 2010 Winter Olympics, which were held in Vancouver. The average audience peaked at 14 million viewers at 11:38 p.m. ET when Ernie Clement came to bat in the bottom of the ninth inning.
• The final three games of the Series in Canada averaged 7.2 million viewers (Game 5), 9.4 million viewers (Game 6) and 10.9 million viewers (Game 7).
• The entire World Series on English-speaking Canadian television averaged 7.5 million viewers. Sportsnet estimated that 23 million Canadians tuned in at some point. The population of Canada is 41 million.
• The final numbers from Japan are expected sometime this week, but the expectation is that Game 7 drew more than 10 million viewers.
• The combined North American audience for Game 7? An incredible 38.2 million viewers.
