Updated on June 22: Telemundo had to restate its viewership figures because of what it called “Nielsen’s revised data.” As a result, the network’s audience measurement fell to 7 million viewers.
On the same day, a Fox spokesperson confirmed to The Inquirer that the network’s viewership figures are for broadcast windows longer than just the game itself. As such, the spokesperson said the “match window” number, to use the industry term, was 19.9 million viewers.
That means the combined number in the record book is now 26,900,000 viewers. That total ranks No. 3 all-time among soccer broadcasts in the United States, behind the 2014 men’s World Cup final and the 2015 women’s World Cup final.
Our original story follows below.
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The final viewership numbers from the U.S.-Paraguay game landed on Tuesday, and they revealed a new record for the most-watched soccer game in American broadcast history.
Fox reported an audience of 18.037 million in English and Telemundo reported 9.5 million in Spanish, with both networks counting their TV and online audiences. The combined total of 27,537,000 broke a mark that had stood since the 2014 World Cup final, which drew a reported 27,314,274 viewers across ABC, Univision, and their respective streaming platforms.
Philadelphia was Fox’s No. 9 ratings market for U.S.-Paraguay, a network spokesperson told The Inquirer.
The combined audience was bigger than that of the decisive Game 5 of the NBA Finals on ABC, 24.5 million viewers according to ESPN. The series averaged 20.6 million viewers per game.
The peak audience of Game 5 was 33 million viewers. Fox’s peak for U.S.-Paraguay was 21.526 million and Telemundo’s was 7.1 million, for a combined 28.626 million.
U.S.-Paraguay isn’t the only game that has drawn a big audience. The Mexico-South Africa tournament opener last Thursday had a combined 20.586 million viewers, with Fox drawing 7.186 million across all platforms and Telemundo drawing 13.4 million. The latter number is the biggest ever audience for any soccer game on a Spanish-language network.
Mexico-South Africa was the most-watched World Cup group stage game not involving the U.S. — for all of two days. Saturday’s Brazil-Morocco game in the Meadowlands beat it, drawing a combined audience of 21.219 million: 10.019 million on Fox and 11.2 million on Telemundo.
Those two contests now stand as Nos. 10 and 11 in the all-time rankings. Sunday’s Netherlands-Japan game also makes the top 20, with 17.238 million reported viewers: 8.838 million on Fox and 8.4 million on Telemundo.
Of the 12 games with publicly reported data so far, nine have reached combined audiences over 10 million viewers. One of them is Philadelphia’s first World Cup game, Ivory Coast vs. Ecuador on Sunday, which drew 13.473 million viewers across FS1 (4.273 million), Telemundo (9.2 million), and their online streams.
Based on publicly-available data, the record men’s World Cup audience on an English-language network remains the 2014 U.S.-Portugal game, which drew 18.71 million viewers on ESPN. The overall soccer record in English is the 2015 women’s World Cup final, where Fox’s primetime broadcast of the U.S. triumph drew 25.632 million viewers.
For over a decade, The Inquirer has compiled a database of the most-watched soccer broadcasts in U.S. history. Click here to see the full list.
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