The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
