The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
