The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
