The thrilling extended contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
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 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 drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different languages.
