The exciting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
