The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
