The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
