The thrilling extended contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
