The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American average was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
