The nail-biting extended clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
