The exciting extra-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate over 50 million watchers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two straight years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
