The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
