The exciting extended contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
