The thrilling 11-inning contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB stated this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33M audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
