The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
