The thrilling 11-inning contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total over 50 million viewers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
