The nail-biting extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 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 seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
