The nail-biting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
