The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
