The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB stated this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
