The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
