Viewers flocked to Royals for deciding game of World Series

The viewing numbers are in, and you watched the Royals like never before.

The decisive seventh game, won by the San Francisco Giants 3-2 on Tuesday night, drew a 58.3 rating in Kansas City on Fox, according to Nielsen.

The rating indicates the number of TV households in the market that tuned into the game. Kansas City has about 950,000 TV households as the nation’s 31st ranked market.

The rating was the third highest of any game in any market over the past 14 years. In 2001, game seven of the Arizona Diamondbacks victory over the New York Yankees drew a 62.3 rating in Phoenix, and the 2004 series-clinching game four triumph for the Red Sox over the St. Louis Cardinals did a 59.0 in Boston.

The Royals’ game-six victory drew a 54.6 rating in Kansas City.

By comparison the Chiefs’ playoff loss to the Colts in January pulled a 48.0 rating in Kansas City on NBC.

Ratings don’t include out of home group settings like bars or the thousands who watched on one screen in the Power & Light District.

Nationally, the drama of game seven posted a series-high 13.7 rating, the best for a World Series game since the Cardinals victory over the Rangers in the seventh game of the 2011 series.

In total audience, game seven attracted 52 million viewers who watched all or part of the game, making it the most-watched sporting event this year since the Winter Olympics and the second-most watched baseball game on any network since 2004.

The numbers for the finale kept the World Series from being the lowest-watched ever. It was headed that way through six games, but the competitive finale along with the heroics of Giants’ pitcher Madison Bumgarner, who pitched five scoreless innings to earn a save, drove the audience.

Especially in Kansas City.

This story was originally published October 30, 2014 at 10:01 PM with the headline "Viewers flocked to Royals for deciding game of World Series."