Nationals-Astros was least-watched Game 7 this decade, but the ratings news isn't all bad
These days, when it comes to baseball ratings, you take the good with the bad. For this World Series between the Houston Astros and Washington Nationals, and specifically Wednesday night’s Game 7, there was indeed both good and bad.
John Ourand of Sports Business Journal reports Game 7 had 23.013 million viewers with a 13.1 rating. It was 24 million when you add streaming platforms. That makes it the most-watched non-NFL sporting event of the year on Fox and the most-streamed MLB game ever on Fox.
Those numbers are quite a bit more than the previous games in this series — 85 percent actually, according to Fox Sports’ Michael Mulvihill. The Hollywood Reporter is also calling it the most-watched baseball game in two years.
Where that doesn’t compare as well is to other World Series Game 7s this decade. In fact, it ranks the lowest among the five, coming in below the 2014 Game 7 between the Royals and Giants, which drew 23.517 million viewers. The other end of that is Cubs and Indians in 2016 with 40.047 million.
MLB Game 7s this decade:
2016 Cubs-Indians: 40.047 million viewers
2017 Astros-Dodgers: 28.287 million
2011 Cards-Rangers: 25.403 million
2014 Giants-Royals: 23.517 million
2019 Nats-Astros: 23.013 million— John Ourand (@Ourand_SBJ) October 31, 2019
Astros vs. Dodgers in 2017 ranks No. 2 at 28.287 million, so it’s 2016 that’s more of an outlier.
Overall, The Hollywood Reporter is calling this the least-watched World Series since that 2014 Royals-Giants matchup, with an average-per-game audience of 13.91 million, which is a tick below 2014’s 13.93 million.
Still, Ourand reports that Fox and FS1’s postseason numbers were up 12 percent over 2018, averaging 7.835 million throughout October.
The digital numbers are interesting too, particularly in the era of cord-cutters. Nationals-Astros Game 7 topped Cubs-Indians in 2016 as the most-streamed MLB game ever on Fox platforms — 373K average vs. 365K.
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Mike Oz is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at mikeozstew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @mikeoz
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