The exciting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
