The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
