The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
