The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
