The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
