The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience 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 highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
