The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
