Fall Classic Final Game Draws Over 50 Million Audience Members In the US, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting extended contest where the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51 million watchers across the United States, Canada, and Japanese territories. Major League Baseball reported this is the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 after the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
The Saturday epic game secured 27.33M viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. Per Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game after the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and the third game landed in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In the Canadian market, the climactic game averaged 11.6 million viewers on Sportsnet and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the most-watched English broadcast in Canada since the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – in which World Series MVP Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million spectators, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Series Averages and Trends
The entire seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has recorded viewership increases for two straight seasons.
Counting the Game 1 broadcast on the Univision network, the total American average reached 16.1 million. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an eight percent increase over the previous year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 various tongues.
