The exciting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. 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 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
