The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71M audience members on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
