The nail-biting extended contest that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers overcome the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total over 50 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured over 27 million audience members on Fox Sports networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the previous Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game came in 8th, and the third game landed in thirteenth position.
International Audience Figures
In Canada, the game recorded over 11 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership increases for two consecutive seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to the previous year and the network’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
