World Series Game 7 Draws 51 Million Viewers In the United States, Canada and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this marks the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
