The nail-biting extended clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51 million watchers across the US, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this is the highest-rated World Series Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance after 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
