diff --git a/drake_bazel_external_legacy/.bazelversion b/drake_bazel_external_legacy/.bazelversion
index ae9a76b9..815da58b 100644
--- a/drake_bazel_external_legacy/.bazelversion
+++ b/drake_bazel_external_legacy/.bazelversion
@@ -1 +1 @@
-8.0.0
+7.4.1
diff --git a/drake_bazel_external_legacy/README.md b/drake_bazel_external_legacy/README.md
index 46818c19..a7f29fe0 100644
--- a/drake_bazel_external_legacy/README.md
+++ b/drake_bazel_external_legacy/README.md
@@ -4,7 +4,8 @@ This pulls in Drake and builds it from source via Bazel's WORKSPACE mechanism,
 which is deprecated as of Bazel 8 and will be removed in Bazel 9. Therefore,
 we do not recommend using this example for new projects; instead, refer to
 the `drake_bazel_external` example. The legacy example primarily serves
-as a regression test for the deprecated behavior.
+as a regression test for the deprecated behavior, and therefore uses Drake's
+minimum supported Bazel version.
 
 For an introduction to Bazel, refer to
 [Getting Started with Bazel](https://bazel.build/start).
diff --git a/private/test/file_sync_test.py b/private/test/file_sync_test.py
index d6ac6d1b..343bcf74 100755
--- a/private/test/file_sync_test.py
+++ b/private/test/file_sync_test.py
@@ -74,7 +74,6 @@
         ".bazelignore",
         ".bazelproject",
         ".bazelrc",
-        ".bazelversion",
         ".clang-format",
         ".github/ci_build_test",
         ".github/setup",