The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise 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 seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
