The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
