The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run averaged a aggregate 51 million spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic game secured 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, the sixth game ranked 4th, Game 4 ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
Global Viewership Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – recorded 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series averaged over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time after 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the opening game broadcast on the Univision network, the complete American average was over 16 million. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 nations and regions by forty-four broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
