The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
