The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s 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 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
