The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.