The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
