The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated World Series Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game drew 27.33M viewers on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
