The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
