The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US average reached over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason performance after 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
