The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 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 – drew 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-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The total 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 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
