The thrilling extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
