The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
