The thrilling 11-inning clash where the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million watchers in the US, Canada, and Japan territories. MLB announced this is the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday memorable contest drew 27.33 million audience members on Fox channels, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the week.
It additionally stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a sixteen percent improvement over the last Game 7 between the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, the fourth game was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6M watchers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports. This was the most-watched English-language broadcast in the country since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final game started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yamamoto allowed one run in six frames – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series recorded over 15.7 million audience members on Fox, a two percent increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership growth for two straight years.
Counting the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total American average reached 16.1M. The total Fall Classic viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels averaged 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase compared to last year and Fox’s best postseason ratings since 2017.
MLB reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.