The exciting extended contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51M viewers across the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition showdown featuring the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest drew 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched World Series game since the 2017 Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, the fifth game came in eighth, and Game 3 landed in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French-language TVA Sports. This made it the most-watched English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the final contest started at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it averaged 12M. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the most-watched World Series game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The full seven-game World Series drew over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the first time after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the total US average reached over 16 million. The total Fall Classic average in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance after 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen various tongues.
