The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M watchers across the United States, Canadian, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in 13th position.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1 million spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series drew 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an 8% increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
