MLB Caps Big Year With 27.3M Viewers for World Series Game 7

The last of the World Series viewership figures from the U.S. is in, and it’s historically big. 

Fox said late Tuesday that it averaged 27.3 million viewers in the U.S. for the dramatic, 11-inning Game 7 between the Dodgers and Blue Jays, one in which Los Angeles became the first repeat Major League Baseball champion in 25 years. The figure represents the most-watched World Series game since Game 7 of the 2017 World Series.

This is a final audience figure incorporating Nielsen’s new Big Data + Panel measurement process. A preliminary fast national figure of 25.98 million for Game 7, released early Monday, conveyed a similarly strong sentiment, with the Big Data + Panel methodology ultimately delivering a slight boost. 

With the final figure in hand, Fox averaged 15.7 million viewers for the entire seven-game World Series, essentially on par with last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup despite the loss of a second Nielsen-rated U.S. home market in the 2025 matchup.

The audience for this year’s Game 7, meanwhile, was also coupled with the massive viewership in Canada. That situation north of the border was led by Game 7 viewership on Sportsnet that became the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country outside of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. 

Combining the English-language broadcasts in the U.S. and Canada on Fox and Sportsnet, Game 7 averaged a whopping 38.2 million viewers. 

A Very Big Year for Baseball

The Fox figures from the World Series also placed a significant coda on what has been a highly successful year for MLB on multiple fronts. Even amid darkening clouds on the labor front between owners and players, the league’s 2025 has included:

• A third-straight annual increase in attendance
• Across-the-board boosts among national television rights holders
• Record-setting viewership in the wild-card playoff round
• Strong audience lifts in the division series and league championship series

Japanese viewership for the World Series—which started off big due in part to the presence of Dodgers stars Shohei Ohtani, Roki Sasaki, and Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto—is expected in full on Wednesday.