The thrilling extra-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this represents the most-watched World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
