The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings after 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
