The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different tongues.
