The nail-biting extra-inning clash where the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 various languages.
