The exciting extended clash where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators in the United States, Canada, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew over 27 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game after the 2017 edition final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a 16% improvement compared to the last Game 7 between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, the fourth game was 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada after the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million viewers, making it the most-watched Fall Classic game on a single network in the country.
Series Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series drew over 15.7 million audience members on the Fox network, a 2% rise from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has seen viewership growth for two consecutive years.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on Univision, the total US average reached 16.1 million. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full playoffs on Fox and its sister channels recorded 8.09 million watchers, an eight percent rise over the previous year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
