The nail-biting extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
