The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous 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 the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
