The thrilling extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.