The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
