Nationals-Astros Drew 23M Viewers, Was Least-Watched World Series Game 7 Ever

The Washington Nationals' 6-2 victory over the Houston Astros in Game 7 of the World Series was a mixed bag in terms of ratings for Major League Baseball and Fox.

Per Andrew Bucholtz of Awful Announcing, Wednesday's game received 23.013 million viewers on television to make it the least-watched Game 7 in World Series history. 

The good news is ratings for the final two games of the series, including 16.425 viewers for Game 6, were high enough to bump the average viewers of this year's series up to 13.912 million to avoid being the least-watched Fall Classic in history.

Michael Mulvihill, Fox Sports executive vice president and head of strategy, also put a positive spin on the ratings. 

"In the end, the World Series produced over 26 hours of live content at an average viewership of over 14 million and outdrew the No. 1 show in entertainment primetime by plus-20 percent, one of the largest margins ever between the WS and the No. 1 scripted show," Mulvihill wrote on Twitter. 

Prior to Game 6, the Nationals-Astros series was on track to be the lowest-rated World Series in history.

An average of 11.6 million people tuned in to the first five games. The previous record low was the 12.64 million average for the 2012 World Series between the San Francisco Giants and Detroit Tigers, per David Bauder of the Associated Press. 

The Nationals won their first-ever World Series title by beating the Astros and became the first MLB franchise in Washington, D.C. to win a championship since the 1924 Washington Senators.