The thrilling extended matchup that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
