The nail-biting 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the climactic game drew over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This made it the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12 million. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The entire seven-game series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership increases for two consecutive years.
Counting the opening game telecast on the Univision network, the total American average was 16.1M. The total Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four media partners in 16 various languages.
