The nail-biting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays 5-4 drew a total 51 million watchers in the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown between the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable game averaged over 27 million viewers on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s digital services. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th place.
International Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on Fox, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete US viewership was 16.1 million. The overall World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
