The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average was over 16 million. The overall World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged over 8 million viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various languages.
