The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
