The thrilling extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
