The thrilling extended clash that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
