Record breaking ALCS game 7 ratings! Over 9 million viewers
Sportsnet reported 11.8 million Canadians watched Game 7, which is pretty remarkable for a country with 1/10th the population of the US
What even is that compared to the population of Canada?
41 million people in total roughly live here. So that is 1/4th of the country
Damn, shoutouts to y’all
Thanks. We are super into baseball. It’s our #2 sport.
Having just been in Calgary a week ago, I was able to enjoy firsthand your #1 sport, price gouging at the grocery store
Oh man. So so true.
LOL I hate how right this is
I don’t like this sport.
But you’re right :(
But the exchange rate makes it a steal
🤣🤣 you haven’t seen nothing yet. You should move here and pay for rent, insurance, gas.
Where Safeway goes, price gouging follows.
It’s my #1. 😎
Source: am Canadiana
Checks out, growing up the jocks in high school either played hockey, baseball or both.
If an equivalent percentage of Americans watched the game it would’ve been 100 million.
So the superbowl every year?
Yeah more than 3 of the last 5 superbowls. Pretty impressive for baseball in Canada.
Yeah, but baseball
Do these numbers count accounts watching or does it project how many people watched one screen?
And that doesn’t even include all those Barrett’s Privateers who watched the game but not on Sportnet ;)
Over a quarter of the population
I think our population is about 41M now so around 28-29% of the country
That’s way more than I thought tbh I thought I heard Canada only had around 30-35 million people (less than the state of California)
Yeah the last 5 years have. Been crazy
That stat has been thrown out for like a decade. Funny thing, populations change.
The never ending construction
More than 1 in 4 Canadians were watching the Jays and Mariners game 7
More than 1 in 4.
California .
25%
This must make it one of the top 5 viewed televised events in Canada ever. About the same amount of people watched the final Tragically Hip concert (across all cbc platforms) back in 2016.
The 2010 Olympic gold medal hockey game had peak viewership of like 26.5 million (80% of population at the time). Opening and closing ceremonies were like 10 or 12 million I think too.
11.8 million would make it 4th all time in Canada, ahead of the 2010 Olympics preliminary round Men’s hockey game between Canada & USA, but behind the opening ceremonies for the 2010 Olympics
11.8 million was total reached. Average audience was 6 million.
2026 Olympic Gold medal game with Canada would maybe pull these numbers.
That game is going to be 8am Sunday morning for those of us in the eastern timezone. Maybe 2034 in Salt Lake City.
Yeah prime time makes a huge difference
I think the 2010 game was the last day of the Olympics, and the game was noon PT / 3 pm ET on a Sunday. Closing ceremonies were later that day which was reason for noon start. I guess that time worked for a lot of people.
Since the 2026 game is in Europe and might have to accommodate the closing ceremonies too, it’ll be more like Sochi where the game was at 4 am PT / 7 am ET. Even if it’s a couple hours later, you’re not going to draw 80% of the population with a game time like that.
It’s legit the only thing any one is talking about in Canada haha
Every workplace, every household, even if you otherwise don’t care about baseball, you do now.
blue jays games at safeco are gonna be insufferable for the next decade now, sigh.
Maybe, maybe not. A lot of us aren’t going because we don’t want an involuntary detour.
so we’ll get the lowest denominators of the fanbase, great
Sorry, my guy
Yeah, sorry buddy
Apologies, friend
I love that you call your stadium by its original name.
A lot of us call SkyDome by its original name too. The original names are sometimes just too iconic to not use.
Fuck corporate arenas 🤢 (looking at you crypto.com)
We lucked out on that, since Great American (Insurance) Ballpark sounds like an old-timey stadium name.
Glad to see the game growing in Canada. Reminds me of when the Blackhawks were breaking tv viewership records years ago when they had Patrick Kane and were a dominant force in the league. Was good for the sport of hockey in America.
Yeah but that’s in Canadian numbers, how many would it be when converted to US numbers?
Over 100million
Think a couple thousand at most, the conversion rate is pretty low last time I checked. /s
Despite Nielsen’s recent improvements, whenever you see ratings of live sports from other countries compared to the U.S it’s clear that they’re still under-counting viewers. It’s not just this game, or baseball, or even sports. Even 20 years ago, before streaming and smartphones, you could sense that.
Not sure where that number came from, the comparable Canadian number (average viewership) was 6 million. See /u/voyaguer04’s comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/1odm19l/comment/nkuxhtj/
It came from Sportsnet, but yes worth noting that the 11.8 million is the total amount of viewers over the course of the game, at any point in the game, not the average or the peak
Literally us, Sportsnet
Fair enough, mostly just making sure we’re comparing apples to apples.
I sailed the open seas, so make that 11.8 million AND ONE!
Is it really that impressive when there’s only 1 team in Canada?
well, kind of is, yeah.
just because you have a team doesn’t mean people will watch. Blue Jays and Raptors have done a good job of capturing a lot of Canada… but the fanbases are quite fickle. which is why you get the feeling of “why are jays/raptors games empty” when they suck to having the largest fanbase in the league when they’re good.
You can’t forget that despite Toronto being the beating heart of Canada, a lot of people don’t like the city… so it’s kind of miraculous. Every part of Canada basically compares itself against Toronto, much like how everyone in Canada compares itself against the USA. Lots of internal tensions just because of how influential the city is.
What else do we have to do up here? It’s fucking cold so you gotta stay inside and watch sports.
This wouldn’t include the Canadian numbers then right? Fox is just the US broadcast? If so, thats crazy.
Correct.
Hell yeah. That’s crazy
6 million average over TV and legal streaming. 8.3 million peak as the game ended. Over the whole Post-Season, the coverage has ‘reached’ 17.4 million Canadians. Source : https://about.rogers.com/news-ideas/rogers-delivers-most-watched-blue-jays-game-ever-with-alcs-game-7-on-sportsnet/
There is an interesting question buried here as the Fox broadcast was available in much of Canada. So there would definitely have been Canadians who have a cable package but not the Sportsnet’s add-ons who would have watched Fox coverage and not be counted.
I know when we had cable in Southeastern Michigan we got CBC, I imagine the people in Windsor get the local Detroit stations
I’ve picked up CBET over the air in the Detroit market
Also no pirate streams which probably would increase the numbers quite a bit… or so I’ve heard…
Put more games on free tv and not streaming platforms and you’ll see more of this. Plus, it was a good game/series.
Sir, your solid logic has no place in the modern world.
His logic: give me entertainment for free
Redditors: flawless reasoning
Billionaire logic: Give me stadium for free. Taxpayers can also pay $200/month for all the streaming services needed to watch the ‘local’ team they are subsidizing
Working class Fans: Sounds fair
Billionaires shouldn’t get subsidized stadiums either, it’s a false dichotomy to suggest it’s an either/or. Look, I’m not above people illegally streaming games, I do it too on occasion. Just spare me the moralising about how you are entitled to a free product.
Who in this thread said they were entitled to a free product?
It’s not a ‘free product’ if you are taking tax payer money.
Also, broadcast TV exists and provides free entertainment with an antenna.
Working class Fans
You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know… morons.
To be fair, stadiums do generate a shit ton of economic activity. There’s a reason cities agree to pay for them, not that the billionaires shouldn’t.
It’s been long established in the literature that stadiums are a massive net negative financially. Cities agree to pay for them because they’re usually run by complete morons
The broadcast is full of ads. They’re getting their money’s worth even on “free” broadcasts. They could get even better ad deals with the boosted viewership.
You can make money on free entertainment, by having adds and ad on sales. See: this website
Reddit’s 2024 revenue: $1.3 Billion
Reddit’s 2024 operating costs: $1.86 Billion
MLB’s 2024 revenue: $12.1 Billion
MLB’s 2024 operating costs: Total operating costs unavailable, but payroll alone was $5.1 Billion
Something tells me that the MLB isn’t too eager to copy Reddit’s business model
NFL’s 2024 revenue: $23 Billion
The NFL has all of their games in the local market free over the antenna.
Imagine we still had analog broadcasting and anyone could just plug in a TV and watch the game.
Wish we had that for big world wide events like the Olympics and the World Cup, the numbers would be insane.
We still have them. They’re digital now, but I literally watched G7 of the ALCS with my antenna. I did the same thing with the olympics last year and will be doing it for the world cup next year, which fox announced the other day will have the largest over the air coverage of a world cup in US history.
So that’s just US viewers then? Doesn’t include anyone watching on Sportsnet in Canada.
Or people like me who stream Dan and Buck on TSN in America because they’re far superior to anything FOX puts out there
Dan and Buck are on Sportsnet. Rogers wouldn’t sell the broadcasting rights to the Jays to their arch rivals.
To be fair Dan and Buck were also on TSN for many years in the ‘90s when they had rights, then took separate paths before teaming again on Sportsnet a few years ago.
To be fair streaming didn’t exist when they were on TSN…
Pobodys nerfect
To be faaaaaaaaaaair
You’d be surprised
Rogers was still using the CTV studios for Sportsnet until Bell bought CTV.
Telecommunications is wild - Rogers does joint builds with Bell all the time and Bell would be in their top five suppliers. Bell’s largest customer is probably Telus.
Don’t be throwing shade at Joe Davis like that. Buck and Dan are amazing but Joe Davis presents just such a better product for Fox than what they’ve had in the past.
not true auntie
Joe Davis and John Smoltz have been great towards the Jays all postseason. Smoltz even predicted in game 1 vs the yankees that the MLB world would know about Kirk before these playoffs are over, pretty nice foreshadowing of the run the Jays would go on.
not saying they havent been “good” to the jays, they are however, not comparable to buck and dan in play calling, colour, vibes and excitement.
Normally, yes I agree.
That said their call of Springer’s homer was one instance where Joe Davis probably topped Shulman’s call.
Sportsnet apparently averaged 6 million viewers on average. So the average rating was about 15 million people in North America.
Counting just the peak audience, SN was at 11.8m and FOX was at 12.3m, so towards the end of that game it was likely past 20 million viewers in North America.
In other words, figure something out with the CBA and avoid a GD lockout. The game is in a great spot.
Are the owners aligned on lockout? I could see the rich and poor owners not wanting it.
The middle is probably the ones clamoring for it.
9,028,001 I was pirating it thank you
There is quite a few of us. I’m in my 40s and almost everyone I know watching from an “alternative” provider.
I had to jump to a few different sites because my usuals were getting overloaded with traffic. Wouldn’t surprise me if it would add hundreds of thousands of viewers
I had to do that too. My usual was full 😭
I had to listen on the high seas in Spainish.
If you’re running a vpn anyway, then download the sportsnet app and listen for free
*002
I actually watched this one legally because it was on actual Fox and not FS1 and I have one of those digital antennas.
I generally try to watch sports legally but I’m not willing to sign up for cable/pseudo cable to watch the couple dozen games that ESPN and FS1 have every year.
I was watching via my traditional one month per year Sling TV subscription. Reminded me to cancel…
I was on my umpteenth free 10 day fubo subscription.
I’ll be on my umpteenth and on free 10 day fubo subscription for the world series.
In Europe you pretty much have to pirate
Cool all those people got to watch me get punched in the balls!
Lt. Dan looking sad with confetti gif
I don’t think anyone would disagree that the Mariners produced the most drama of the playoffs so far. 15-inning game 5 of ALDS, excruciatingly close game 7 of ALCS, some huge highs and lows every step of the way. We’ll see what happens in the WS but I think it’s going to be hard to top the M’s series for sheer craziness.
I’m almost wondering if the WS will pale in comparison to the ALCS and the ALDS. The NL side of the postseason just hasn’t had the same pizzaz at the AL side. Especially if it’s a sweep or even just lopsided (for the Jays of course 😉).
That’s wild, I never would have thought it was that big stateside.
It’ll be even more surprising when the Marlins and Rays are in the World Series, next year
Maybe a few dozen will tune in.
Baseball playoffs is always big here in the states. If anything Americans are shocked by how great the television ratings are up north
Yeah, that’s been amusing. But also unsurprising since every US story on TV ratings simply excludes Toronto. That’s not necessarily unfair since we don’t impact US numbers, and because we measure viewership a little differently so it doesn’t become a fair comparison.
However, the Blue Jays averaged over 900,000 viewers a game in the regular season this year. Jays’ viewership is massive. The only other regular event that can match it is the early game on Hockey Night in Canada.
Now imagine a team in Montreal.
I honestly wonder if neutrals would watch a Jays vs Expos World Series. Would be interesting.
I’d watch the shit out of that
What makes a man a turn neutral?
A lust for gold, power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?
If I die, tell my wife…. Hello
My assumption would be that over half of Canada would watch this, but barely anyone in the US outside of hardcore baseball fans.
I feel like Toronto would be the biggest naysayers because their viewers would split
Yep, Rogers would try their best to block any expansion into Vancouver or Montreal.
Not if they owned the team!
Multi-team ownership has been banned since 1899.
Why would rogers want that? Would a new team get net-new fans? Roger’s would have to double everything + build a stadium to make it happen.
I don’t think the business case is there (no where close tbh) for Roger’s to justify the investment into a new team. You would need to bring in people that don’t watch the jays today to justify it. Otherwise it’s left pocket-right pocket.
Lastly, fat chance Roger’s lets another company do it on their turf. They own baseball in Canada and are not letting go any time soon.
I don’t know what it was about this series that made me watch. Once my team is out I normally stop watching and move on to the next thing, but this series was so fascinating to me for some reason. I was hooked!
It was a great series and either team could have won it.
Manfred and the poor owners seeing this:
and that’s only fox. sportsnet had even more
Now imagine the Fox ratings if they used Dan and Buck for the play by play and commentary.
I was told a Canadian team is unappealing to the US audience.
As a Seahawks fan I can tell you they say the same thing about Seattle teams also
What? The Seahawks got TONS of national prime time games in the 2010s when they were exciting to watch. It’s only slowed now because they’ve been mediocre for the last few years.
5-2 this year and people still waiting for them to fail
I’m a Seahawks fan but https://www.espn.com/nfl/team/schedule/_/name/sea/season/2023
5-2 doesn’t tell you much right now given that there’s a 6-way tie for it
nobody says this about seattle teams
Seahawks are 5-2 and still no love
The Americans are hate watching.
It was a fun and competitive series, deserved the good viewership.
Never thought I’d see the day where this statement no longer is true:
It would add suspense to pointless games, like the classically meaningless Mariners-Anybody.
https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/dqbbon/one_new_rule_to_fix_three_true_outcomes_poor/
Dawg you’ve been sitting on this and I respect that
Cool cool cool cool
No doubt no doubt no doubt
It should be noted that this doesn’t include the millions of people who watched it up in Canada (since those ratings figures don’t help set as rates in the US…and because most Canadians watched it on Sportsnet).
Imagine that, we don’t need the Yankees, Cubs, and Dodgers every year to get high viewership
No but seriously, this is really good. Hopefully we don’t screw everything over with the lockout
Imagine the numbers if they hadn’t pitted it against MNF. I swear some of the scheduling makes no sense to sports fans who want to watch both the MLB and NFL.
guess people really love a good game 7
I can’t believe that the Mariners were in the national spotlight for once
Sports is going to get a huge bump because of Nielsen’s new ratings system
I agree, I think this new rating system does a better job at capturing streaming live TV. But 32% jump is massive even with the new formula. For context i think the NFL is up 5% from last year
Yeah including streaming makes sense. The dumber change imo was a few years ago when they started including guesstimates for the number of people watching in bars etc.
What is their new system?
East coast scriptwriters were wrong yet again. Nobody wanted to see the Yankees in the playoffs.
This series was more interesting percicesly because the usual big market teams weren’t there.
Noice
Remember everyone: they changed how Nielsen ratings work this year.
I hope there’s some sort of lesson that is learned that having an in-market broadcast feed is good for ratings.
Being able to listen with the Sportsnet crew with Dan and Buck is huge.
Makes me wonder how many Mariners fans were watching the game with their radio broadcast.
Japan🇯🇵 vs Canada 🇨🇦, world series is gonna be lit fs
It says record breaking but 2017 game 7 had more so how is it record breaking?
Many people are saying it was the most watched game ever. Huge ratings
I’m not shocked that Rangers-Astros wasn’t very compelling for lots of people.
They changed the method for ratings collection, so while this surely did more and got more interest than that, it isn’t a 1:1 comparison
What record are you talking about??
Seriously what record?
Good for the Mariners for pulling in those kinds of numbers. I don’t want to ever hear the words “smaller market” out of someone’s mouth (or on Reddit) again. These US numbers are massive.
I’d imagine 2 teams who either haven’t been in the WS in a while (or forever) would be interesting to witness, no?
Congratulations, MLB and FOX Sports! I’m sure glad you are making a bunch of money! I’m sure these Nielsen ratings will prevent a lockout in 2027!
Fox was really positioning Vladdy as the superstar to watch. I think the World Series will be marketed as Ohtani vs Vladdy, and it will do huge numbers.
I think the biggest and best change MLB has made is adding the pitch clock and all the caps on things like pick off throws that help move the game along. The games just flow so much better. It is a better product to watch.
That’s awesome
I’m shocked it’s that high just on the fox side. Would that include the people watching the fox broadcast in Canada?
TV audience measurement isn’t done by the same companies in Canada vs the US so unless they went looking for those number, I’d guess no.
Wow
Ok so what were the nfl numbers
In all honesty probably double this.
So add Canada, and it’s the same or slightly more.
That’s true, NFL’s counts two fanbases tuning in while this 9 million is only counting one fanbase.
Eat you heart out, ESPN, bye felicia . I hope MLB become the biggest sport in the World in 2030 and beyond. Thank you Murdoch
people love watching teams that are not featured often. The under dogs who have not see the show in decades. ACLS was million x more interesting than the NLCS.
So much for “Canadian market means us media numbers are lower”. That’ll be entirely or almost entirely American numbers, add another 11 mill or so for Canada
It was Such a good game
Canada
ITS OVER 9 MILLION!
Vladdy is good tv. Plus Yankee fans hate watching.
For comparison, the very hyped up deciding game of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Pacers and Knicks in the playoffs earlier in the year got 8 million viewers. The NBA and MLB are behind the NFL in viewership but the gap between the NBA and MLB isn’t as big as it used to be lately
The various drama in this series has been great for ratings like old man Scherzer pitching lights out and yelling at his manager not to take him out of the game to Springer being hit by a ball and then exacting revenge in G7.
the entire nation of Canada was watching
+1 more for this pirate
yarrrrrr
