The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, 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 recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
