The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
