The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International 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 highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
