The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
