The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
