The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
