The thrilling extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB stated this is the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
