The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
