The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
