The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
