The thrilling 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
