The exciting extended contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
