The exciting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
