The nail-biting 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in sixteen various tongues.
