Canada watches in record numbers as Kawhi Leonard sinks Sixers in Game 7

Sunday night’s Game 7 between the Raptors and the 76ers was tense, back-and-forth, and featured an already-legendary finish — and a record number of Canadians tuned in to see it.

According to Sportsnet, Game 7 was the most-watched basketball game in ever in Canada, with 5.8 million Canadians tuning in to watch some or all of the game.

5.8 million! That’s a lot! Like, 16% of our entire population! But hey, if you like mind-boggling numbers, I have even more for you.

The average number of viewers for the game was 2.2 million people watching; if you want something to compare that to, consider this: February’s Raptors-Spurs tilt, featuring DeMar DeRozan’s return to Toronto, was the most-watched regular season basketball game ever in Canada... and the average number of viewers for that game was 710,000. Quite a jump!

Wait, wait, I have one more inconceivable number for you. At 9:33 p.m. last night, when that crazy dragon lady was doing her thing on Game of Thrones, 3.8 million Canadians were watching that crazy Fun Guy Kawhi Leonard drop his miracle four-bouncer through the hoop to send Philadelphia 76ers home. 3.8 million! I don’t know about you, but I’m confident in saying those 3.8 million Canucks made the right choice.

But let’s watch it again just to be sure.

Yep. Best show on television last night.

All in all, the seven-game series drew in 6.8 million Canadians on Sportsnet, who had Games 1, 3, 5 and 7, with an average audience of 1.3 million. That’s a 113% increase over last year, when the results on the court were, ahem, not so favourable.

Sportsnet has Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, airing Wednesday night at 8:00 p.m.