The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
