The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total over 50 million spectators across the US, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series averaged 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
