The exciting 11-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M watchers in the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English program in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance 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 different languages.
