The thrilling extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
