The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
