The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, 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 game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
