The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a aggregate 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. MLB announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
