The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different languages.
