The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers 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 contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
