The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
