The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
