Fall Classic Final Game Draws 51M Viewers In the United States, Canadian and Japanese Markets.
The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run attracted a aggregate over 50 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. MLB reported this represents the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest between the Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Television Viewership Details
Last Saturday’s epic contest averaged over 27 million audience members on Fox networks, its Spanish-language channel and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the previous week.
It also stands as the most-watched Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew over 29 million. This marks a 16% increase compared to the last Game 7 featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which drew 23.19M.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
International Viewership Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game averaged 11.6 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the final contest started at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million viewers. This followed the previous Friday’s sixth game – in which Fall Classic MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up a single run in six innings – drew 13.1M viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Series Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game series recorded 15.71M audience members on the Fox network, a two percent rise from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This represents the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Including the Game 1 telecast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The overall Fall Classic average in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1M in Canada.
The full MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB announced that the World Series was televised in 203 nations and regions by 44 broadcasting partners in sixteen different tongues.
