The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US viewership was 16.1 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
