The nail-biting extended matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 drew a aggregate 51M watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox networks, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game recorded 11.6M viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – recorded 13.1 million spectators, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-game series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total US average was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million watchers, an 8% rise compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason performance since the 2017 season.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
