It looks like the Final drew an 9.9 on ABC, which is about the same as 2006. Top markets in terms of ratings were San Fran (14.7), San Deigo (13.6), NY (13.1), Miami (12) and Washington (11.9) Ratings from the first 62 games averaged a 1.9 up from 1.4 in 2006. Viewership among males aged 18-34 was up 27%, while the 18-49 group jumped 46% and the 25-54 group rose 50% for the first 62 games
NEW YORK -- World Cup television viewership rose 41 percent over four years ago for English-language telecasts in the United States, with Spain's 1-0 overtime victory over the Netherlands setting a record for a men's soccer game. Sunday's game in Johannesburg, which gave the Spanish their first World Cup title, was seen by 15,545,000 viewers on ABC, according to fast national ratings. The previous high was 14,863,000 viewers for the United States' 2-1 overtime loss to Ghana in the second round on June 26. An additional 8,821,000 million viewers watched Spanish-language coverage Sunday on Univision, according to Nielsen Media Research, bringing the total to nearly 24.4 million. ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 averaged a 2.1 rating, 2,288,000 households and 3,261,000 viewers for the 64 World Cup games. The rating was up 31 percent from a 1.6 four years ago, while households increased 32 percent from 1,735,000 and viewers rose from 2,316,000. The increases had been higher while the U.S. remained in the tournament. Through the first 50 games, the rating was up 48 percent, households increased 54 percent and viewers rose 60 percent. "We always expected that the presence of the U.S. team would provide us with these big spikes," John Skipper, ESPN's executive vice president of content, said Monday. "The TV rating is only a little piece of the story. One of every three people watched on something other than the television at their home, either watched in a bar, or on their phone, or in their office on a computer." ESPN paid FIFA $100 million for rights to the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, while Univision spent $325 million. With the next tournament scheduled for Brazil, where most of the host cities are only one hour ahead of EDT, the possibility of some prime-time telecasts could boost ratings again. South Africa is six hours ahead of EDT. FIFA has not yet set 2014 game times. "We do know that we have the advantage of the time zone and we will get prime time games, so we have every confidence that we will see another fairly significant ratings increase in '14," Skipper said. And looking ahead, the 2022 tournament could be in the United States. FIFA's executive committee will vote Dec. 2 on the 2018 and '22 sites, and while the first is expected to go to a European nation, the U.S. is favored for 2022. The only World Cup game with more U.S. English-language viewers than for Spain's win Sunday was the 1999 women's final at the Rose Bowl, when the U.S. beat China, a game seen in 11,307,000 households and by 17,975,000 people. Sunday's match received an 8.1 rating on ABC, up 6 percent from the 7.7 for Italy's penalty-kicks win over France in the 2006 final. This was the fourth-highest rating for a men's World Cup game behind Brazil's penalty-kicks victory over Italy in the 1994 final at the Rose Bowl (9.5), Brazil's second-round victory over the U.S. in 1994 (9.3) and this year's Ghana-U.S. match (8.5). The U.S.-Ghana game narrowly edged the final in households, 9,455,000 to 9,389,000. Miami-Fort Lauderdale finished with the highest average tournament rating on ABC/ESPN at 3.9, followed by New York and Washington (3.6), and San Diego and San Francisco (3.5). Viewership for the final on Univision was up 49 percent from 5,903,000 for 2006. Sunday's game was the third most-watched program on U.S. Spanish-language TV, trailing Argentina's win over Mexico on June 27 (9,405,000) and the finale of the novella "Destilando Amor [Essence of Love]" on Dec. 3, 2007 (9,018,000). Univision averaged 2,624,000 viewers for the tournament, up 17 percent, and 1,625,000 households, an increase of 11 percent.
That's a pretty surprising # given all the w2ds and old political "soccer is a girl's game" types but I suppose a lot of the intern 18-25 year old demographic made up for it
there are a ton of people from other countries there are tons of affluent white people my age and younger that watch soccer as much if not more than football or other sports that's like 70% of washington dc metro area granted, the other 30% are the dc black folk and areas of country leftovers that dont give a shit about soccer, but there are enough of the former to put dc amongst the top 10 soccer places in the country
im assuming one of two things 1. liberal interpretation of dc that included arlington, nova, and montgomery county maryland where most of the affluent whites and affluent foreigners live or 2. estimated based on bar numbers since most of the people above went to dc to watch a lot of the games at the bars there
Yeah I mean any way you look at it between all the foreigners/non-murricans and the liberal interpretation of DC just hard to really gauge. I imagine DC had a lot of watch parties as well.
It will be interesting to see if any of the viewers translate. I think part is just soccer is growing at a steady pace in the country and their are more fans every year, so part of the bump was simple that the fan base has grown yearly for the last 4 years. Obviously, I think that growth will continue over the next 4 years as well likely at a slightly high pace. I am not sure though if it will translate to any bump in the MLS or European Games on ESPN, but the WC is definitely here to stay as a huge event and will be bigger in 4 years with the games only +1 hour instead of +6.
I think more and more it'll start to translate. It was very hard to take MLS seriously when they were playing on surfaces where you could still see the NFL yard markers all over patchwork fields and the level of play was about three notches below the EPL and the stands were full of fans disguised as empty seats. Listless games with a listless air about them, just chugging along, pretending to be real soccer. That is not the case anymore. Increasingly you're seeing small, but very nice, purpose-built soccer-specific stadiums with real atmosphere and real, legitimately passionate fans clogging the stands. Seattle obviously stands out - they pack 37,000+ every game, and those fans are hyped about the Sounders. But MLS these days looks like real professional soccer and while nobody will confuse MLS with the EPL, the top teams like the LA Galaxy are roughly equivalent to a Championship squad and the level of play can be very high (though it still drops off quite a bit, I've noticed, as the game wanes and subs start coming in.) I've been shocked, honestly, by the level of improvement in MLS over even the last 2-3 years...and the real tipping point, IMHO, was when those new MLS stadiums started being played in. Having homes makes all the difference. And very shortly those homes are going to start growing. MLS is easily to the point of adding a team a year...and I think the growth in lower-level teams will be even more explosive. By World Cup Brazil 2014, you'd expect MLS to have 20-22 teams. By World Cup-somewhere-to-be-named-in-Europe 2018, you'd project that number to 25+. By World-Cup-possibly-in-America-in-2022, you'd expect MLS to be easily the size of the NFL...and the big stadiums will probably be seating 50,000+ fans. It would not shock me overly if MLS was within spitting distance of the EPL by then (not equal, but certainly within sight of) in terms of popularity, attendance, and level of play. By 2022, MLS will be 27 years old and, you'd think, coming of age. Driven by that younger demographic, plus an enormous latent but very real Latino population that is presently tuned into the Mexican Primera, it wouldn't shock me if MLS is the #3 or even #2 sport in America. Football will still be king, you'd think...but by 2022 I'd be shocked if MLS hadn't overtaken at least the NHL in ratings and viewership. By 2022, I'd also be shocked if the US wasn't a legit Top-5 team in the world. There's 300 million people in this country and an amazing number of this nation's kids are now playing soccer. In the past, nothing happened with all that young talent once they turned 16...now there's the USL plus all those Premiere-level programs which is forming a real nice academy development program for MLS to grow its own homegrown talent in: http://pdl.uslsoccer.com/standings/index_E.html Just my own opinion, but I think the future will probably bear this out.