NBA Finals 2019: Nearly half of all Canadians watched Raptors win Game 6

Rudi Schuller

NBA Finals 2019: Nearly half of all Canadians watched Raptors win Game 6 image

Canada has officially caught Raptors fever.

Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals, in which Toronto defeated the Golden State Warriors 114-110 to capture its first NBA championship, was watched by an average of 7.7 million viewers on CTV, TSN and French-language RDS, according to Numeris. With 15.9 million unique viewers tuning in at some point, 44 percent of the Canadian population watched at least a portion of Thursday's game.

At the broadcast's peak, 9.99 million people watched as Raptors star Kawhi Leonard sank a pair of free throws to clinch the game in its final second 13 minutes prior to midnight ET.

MORE: Raptors' Finals triumph over Warriors sends strong message to rest of NBA

The massive numbers continued a trend throughout Toronto's successful playoff run. The Canadian record for most-watched NBA game was broken and rebroken as the Raptors moved closer to the title. Monday's Game 5, which was Toronto's first opportunity to clinch the championship, briefly held the record with an average of 6.4 million viewers and 13.4 million unique viewers. 

Thursday's game dominated the Toronto-Hamilton market, with 82 percent of all people watching television in the Raptors' home area tuned into the game. Canada-wide, Game 6 was the most-watched English-language broadcast of any kind since 2016.

In addition to the big viewing numbers, Raptors fans are snapping up championship merchandise in record numbers. The NBA said that, as of Friday afternoon, sales at NBAStore.com are up 80 percent from the previous post-championship record (set in 2016 following the Cleveland Cavaliers' first title) and have doubled last year's numbers.

Rudi Schuller