The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series matchup after the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 different languages.
