The nail-biting 11-inning matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M viewers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. MLB stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
The Saturday epic contest secured 27.33M viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked 4th, Game 4 was 7th, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in 13th place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country after the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it attracted 12M. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Totals and Trends
The full seven-game World Series recorded over 15.7 million viewers on Fox, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US average was over 16 million. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels drew 8.09M watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and the network’s best postseason ratings since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in 203 countries and territories by forty-four broadcasting partners in 16 different tongues.
