The thrilling 11-inning clash that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate over 50 million viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the climactic game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – drew 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-match World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
