The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
