The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
