The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
