The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
