The nail-biting extended matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
