The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
