The exciting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
