The thrilling extended clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total American average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
