The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
