The nail-biting 11-inning contest that saw the Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series matchup since the 2017 edition final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent increase compared to the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth place.
International Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Totals and Patterns
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the World Series has seen audience growth for two consecutive years.
Including the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the complete American average reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and Fox’s strongest postseason ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
