The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
