The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
