Fall Classic Final Game Draws 51M Audience Members In the US, Canadian and Japanese Regions.
The nail-biting extra-inning matchup that saw the Dodgers defeat the Blue Jays by one run attracted a total 51M spectators across the United States, Canada, and Japan markets. Major League Baseball reported this marks the highest-rated Fall Classic Game 7 since the 1991 contest featuring the Twins and Braves.
Broadcast Ratings Details
Last Saturday’s memorable game secured over 27 million viewers on Fox channels, Fox Deportes and Fox’s streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also is the most-watched Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game involving the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which drew 29.07 million. This represents a sixteen percent increase compared to the previous finale between the Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed fourth, the fourth game ranked seventh, Game 5 was eighth, and the third game finished in 13th place.
International Audience Numbers
In the Canadian market, the game recorded over 11 million watchers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the highest-rated English-language broadcast in Canada since the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 PM local time, it drew 12 million. This came after last Friday’s Game 6 – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six innings – drew over 13 million spectators, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic matchup on a single network in Japan.
Overall Totals and Patterns
The full seven-match series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% rise from the previous year’s Dodgers versus Yankees series. This marks 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 World Series average in the Japanese market was 9.7M and 8.1M in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% increase over last year and the network’s strongest postseason performance since 2017.
MLB reported that the World Series was televised in 203 countries and territories by 44 media partners in 16 different tongues.
