The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 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 8% increase over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
