World Series Game 7 Attracts 51M Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US average was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
