The thrilling extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
