Strong ending helps World Series avoid record low viewership

NEW YORK (AP) — It may be no solace to the Houston Astros, but the Washington Nationals’ comeback win in the World Series helped baseball avoid a dubious record.

The series’ seventh and deciding game reached 23.2 million people, eclipsing even “Sunday Night Football” and enabling the Series to average just under 14 million viewers per game, the Nielsen company said. The last game drew nearly 7 million more viewers than any of the other games.

Through five games, the series was on pace to be the least-watched Fall Classic ever.

At least for another year, San Francisco’s four-game sweep of Detroit in 2012 keeps the record of least popular series ever. It averaged 12.66 million viewers.

One last ratings report- as a side note, many of you may find flipping to a few paragraphs ahead rather interesting in terms of understanding the current media market.