The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
