The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a combined 51 million spectators in the US, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic game averaged 27.33 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It additionally is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 edition final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This represents a 16% improvement over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game ranked 4th, the fourth game ranked 7th, Game 5 came in 8th, and the third game finished in thirteenth place.
Global Audience Numbers
In Canada, the climactic game recorded over 11 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest began at 9 p.m. in the local time zone, it attracted 12 million viewers. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six frames – averaged over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a sole broadcaster in the country.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-match World Series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent increase from last year’s Dodgers versus Yankees matchup. This represents the initial instance after 2015 and ‘16 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two consecutive seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on the Univision network, the complete American average was 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic viewership in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1 million in the Canadian market.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox and its sister channels recorded over 8 million watchers, an eight percent rise compared to the previous year and Fox’s strongest playoff performance since 2017.
Major League Baseball stated that the World Series was broadcast in over 200 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen various tongues.
