The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
