The exciting extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
