The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. 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 over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
