By Keach Hagey
Americans are increasingly developing a taste for the "beautiful
game," at least when their own team is playing.
Monday night's World Cup match between the U.S. and Ghana drew
15.9 million viewers total between the two channels carrying the
game, ESPN and Univision, according to preliminary overnight
Nielsen ratings. The figure set World Cup viewership records for
both networks.
The ratings trounced the audience for the National Hockey
League's Stanley Cup finals on Friday, which attracted 6 million TV
viewers. Perhaps more surprising, the viewership numbers for the
soccer game had an admirable showing against Sunday's National
Basketball Association finals game between the San Antonio Spurs
and the Miami Heat, which attracted 17.9 million viewers.
On Monday, ESPN--which is airing the World Cup in English along
with Walt Disney Co. siblings ESPN2 and ABC--drew 11.1 million
total viewers, making it the most-viewed men's soccer match ever on
ESPN or ESPN2, the network said. The match also set a record for
ESPN's mobile streaming app, Watch ESPN, which had a total of 1.4
million viewers.
Univision, which is broadcasting the World Cup in Spanish on its
Univision and UniMas broadcast networks and Univision Deportes and
Galavision cable networks, drew an audience of 4.8 million total
viewers, making it the most-watched World Cup game featuring a U.S.
team ever broadcast on its airwaves. The broadcast beat the opening
U.S. match of the 2010 World Cup, against England, by 17% in total
viewers.
While the viewership figures of Monday's game set World Cup
records for both ESPN and Univision, the total fell short of the
24.7 million who tuned in to the World Cup final in 2010 on ABC and
Univision together.
Online, where Univision Communications Inc. is streaming all of
the World Cup games during the first two rounds without requiring
users to "authenticate," or enter a pay-TV password, Univision's
stream of the U.S. vs. Ghana game drew 1.7 million streams, making
it the fourth most-watched live stream on Univision Digital to
date, the company said.
ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC have averaged 4.1 million viewers through
the first 14 matches of the World Cup, marking an increase of 23%
over the 2010 World Cup, according to ESPN.
Univision's World Cup viewership is up 48% over 2010, the
company said.
American football still reigns in the U.S.: This year's Super
Bowl, broadcast on Fox, drew a record 111.5 million viewers,
according to Nielsen. Fox is a unit of 21st Century Fox, which
until mid-2013 was part of the same company as Wall Street Journal
owner News Corp.
Write to Keach Hagey at keach.hagey@wsj.com
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