The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
