World Cup soccer on Univision, ESPN and ABC has drawn twice as many viewers through the first two days than it did during the last Cup in 2006, with Saturday’s three-hour telecast of United States vs. England match on ABC pulling in 10.8 million people, the fifth largest World Cup soccer audience ever on U.S. television.
The actual two-hour match window on ABC on Saturday was watched by an average 12.9 million viewers.
Not to be outdone, Univision’s broadcast of the opening match on Friday morning between Mexico and South Africa drew an average 5.4 million viewers, making it that network’s most watched opening day match ever. For that same match, ESPN drew 2.6 million viewers.
To draw 8 million viewers combined for a match that started at 9:30 a.m. ET on a weekday morning is impressive, to say the least.
Univision has the Spanish-language Cup TV rights in the U.S., while ESPN/ABC own the English-language TV rights.
Through the first five matches televised on ESPN/ABC (ESPN had four and ABC one), the English-language telecasts were averaging 4.9 million viewers, up 108 percent over the same telecasts during the last Cup in 2006.
ESPN’s most watched game through the first five was Saturday’s game between Argentina and Nigeria, which pulled in 3.7 million viewers.
Univision’s opening South Africa-Mexico match telecast on Friday was buoyed by a strong contingent of Hispanic viewers who also watch regular season-soccer from Mexico on the network. Univision drew twice the number of ESPN viewers in the 18-49 demo (3.2 million to 1.6 million) and among viewers 18-34 (1.9 million to 925,000).
All ratings data are from Nielsen’s NPM fast nationals.
_ The most watched World Cup telecast on U.S. television was the 1999 Women’s Cup final which pitted the U.S. against China and averaged 18 million viewers.
_ The second most watched overall and most watched men’s Cup game was the 1994 final of Brazil vs. Italy on ABC, which pulled in 14.5 million viewers.
_ The most watched Cup game involving the U.S. team was a 1994 round of 16 Cup match on ABC between Brazil and the U.S., which drew 13.7 million.
_ The 2006 Cup Final on ABC between Italy and France drew 12 million viewers.
