The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
