The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
