The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51 million spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
