The nail-biting 11-inning clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51 million viewers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 various languages.
