The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined over 50 million viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
