The nail-biting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete US average was 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best postseason performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
