The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
