The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB reported this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 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 since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
