The exciting extra-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday memorable contest drew over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 edition final game between the Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US average reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 various tongues.
