The thrilling extra-inning clash that saw the Dodgers beat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate over 50 million spectators in the US, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 landed in 13th position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight years.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market 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 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
