The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M watchers in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. 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 viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time after 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 complete American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various languages.
