The exciting extended clash that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M spectators across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
