The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run averaged a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese markets. Major League Baseball announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 edition contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game secured over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second most-watched program of the previous week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase over the last finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth position.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language program in Canada since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest started at 9 p.m. local time, it averaged 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – where World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – recorded 13.1 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game series drew 15.71M viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game telecast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded 8.09M watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and the network’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
