The thrilling extra-inning contest where the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run drew a combined 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball stated this represents the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 edition contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Breakdown
Last Saturday’s memorable contest averaged 27.33M audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to ratings data, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This represents a sixteen percent improvement over the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19M.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This came after the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six frames – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Trends
The entire seven-match series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience increases for two consecutive seasons.
Including the opening game telecast on Univision, the complete American viewership reached over 16 million. The total World Series viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s strongest playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in 16 different languages.
