The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
