The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. MLB reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was seventh, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-game series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership was over 16 million. The overall World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew over 8 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 different tongues.
