The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent rise over last year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
