The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
