The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
