The nail-biting extended clash where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
