The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
