The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average 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 viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
