The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51M viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million 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 stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
