The exciting extra-inning matchup where the Dodgers overcome the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a combined 51 million viewers across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 involving the Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last Game 7 featuring the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game placed 4th, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M watchers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s best playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in 16 different languages.
