The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series drew 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
