Nearly 16 million people in the U.S. watched the country’s World Cup
opener on TV. The Nielsen company says 11.1 million people who saw the
U.S. beat Ghana, 2-1 on Monday on ESPN represented that network’s biggest
audience for a soccer match.
The viewership represented ESPN’s highest-rated telecast since Florida State won the national college American football title in January.
The Ghana-USA broadcast on ESPN earned an 11.8 overnight rating in the
Washington market, the highest number in the country by quite a bit. New
York (10.2), Hartford/New Haven (10.1), Boston (10.0) Columbus (8.9)
and Baltimore (8.7) rounded out the top six.
Nielsen says an additional 4.8 million people watched the Spanish-language broadcast on Univision, making it the most-watched World Cup game featuring a U.S. team ever broadcast on its airwaves.
ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC have averaged 4.1 million viewers through the first
14 matches of the World Cup, marking an increase of 23 percent over the
2010 World Cup, according to ESPN.
Overall, the viewership is down from the 17.3 million who saw the first U.S. match in the 2010 tournament, against England, which was shown on ABC and Univision on a Saturday afternoon. Four years ago, 19.7 million people watched the U.S.-Ghana match in the knockout round, which ended the United States’ run in the tournament and was also shown on ABC and Univision on a Saturday afternoon.
