The exciting extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
