The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a total over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
