World Series Final Game Draws 51 Million Viewers Across the United States, Canadian and Japan Regions.
The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
