The nail-biting extended clash where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a aggregate 51M watchers across the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball stated this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second most-watched program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series game on a single network in the country.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
