The exciting extended matchup that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined over 50 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US average reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
