The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
