The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
