The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total 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, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
