The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
