The thrilling extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
