The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
