The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
