The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings after 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
