The exciting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M spectators in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic contest drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged 29.07 million. This marks a 16% improvement compared to the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was over 16 million. The total World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
