Wednesday’s game five ALDS closer between the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers was one for the record books on and off the field, bringing in record viewership numbers to Sportsnet.

The game had a record-breaking average audience of 4.8 million for Sportsnet, besting Monday’s 4.3 million viewers for game four.

In all, 11.5 million Canadians watched at least part of the game on Sportsnet. Audience levels peaked at 8.1 million average viewers at 7:44 p.m. when Jays pitcher Roberto Osuna struck out the Rangers’ Will Venable.

An average audience of 3.5 million viewers tuned into the one-hour post-game show.

The series between the Jays and Rangers had an average audience of 3.5 million overall, a 1,087% increase over the 2014 ALDS between Detroit and Baltimore.

However, the Texas Rangers’ playoff dreams weren’t the only casualty of the night. CBC’s much-anticipated Chris Haddock drama, The Romeo Section, also debuted on Wednesday. Scheduled long before the Jays made Game 5, the series aired at 9 p.m., while a good chunk of Canadians were still reveling in post-game bliss (or haze). Preliminary overnight numbers for the premiere broadcast of the series showed and average 2+ audience of 277,000, according to Numeris data provided by CBC. The network noted that it expects bigger numbers to be posted after final numbers and catch-up are tallied. 

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

– From Media in Canada, with files from Julianna Cummins