The nail-biting 11-inning contest where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined over 50 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
