The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
