The nail-biting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 attracted a combined 51 million viewers in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33M audience members on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes 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 Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Audience 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 after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
