The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a combined 51M viewers in the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports networks, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth position.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it attracted 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series averaged 15.71M viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete US viewership 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, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since the 2017 season.
MLB stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen various languages.
