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Have Americans finally embraced the biggest sporting event in the world, the FIFA Men’s World Cup? It looks that way. Yesterday’s 2010 FIFA World Cup Final on ABC, in which Spain won over the Netherlands with an extra-time goal – was the most-watched Men’s World Cup game ever, drawing some 15.5 million viewers. It caps a great ratings showing for the tournament, highlighted by a Team USA’s memorable run, which now ranks as the most-viewed World Cup ever on English-language TV in the United States. The 64 matches averaged 2.3 million viewers on ABC on ESPN, up 41% from the 2006 World Cup. Additionally, the final was also the most watched ever on Univision with 8.8 million viewers, up 49% from the 2006 final between Italy and France, to rank as the third most watched program in Univision’s history regardless of genre. That brings the total U.S. audience for the final to 24.3 million.
The final telecast on ABC also delivered an 8.1 household rating. Only the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup Final between the U.S. and China drew more viewers for a soccer game – 18.0 million. In household rating, the final was the fourth highest-rated Men’s World Cup game on record, behind the 1994 Italy-Brazil Final (9.5), the 1994 U.S.-Brazil round of 16 match (9.3), and this year’s U.S.-Ghana epic (8.5). It represents a slight (6%) increase from the 2006 Italy-France Final.
Meanwhile, ABC’s coverage of the Uruguay-Germany 3rd Place match on Saturday averaged 5.0 million viewers, 3.5 million households and a 3.1 rating.
TV Editor Nellie Andreeva - tip her here.
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It is the world cup. That should say it all.
Wow, 23 million viewers for the World Cup final on ABC and Univision.
Pretty impressive given that the World Series typically attracts 14 million to 20 million viewers, depending on the teams.
Looks like soccer is making some major headway in the U.S.
Imagine what the numbers might look like if the U.S. reaches a final.
” [...]if the U.S. reaches a final. ”
I’ve been staring at this mysterious combination of words for more than 25 mn now, trying to elicit its meaning. I give up, i just can’t.
Eat it, rightwingers. All your complaints about soccer being a socialist sport are for naught. Just ask the 50 million American kids who play it. Oh, and sorry the games were so low-scoring as so many of your AM sports radio personalities have complained of. We know you pot-bellied peabrains have the attention spans of gnats. Keep watching Faux News and your steroid-freak heroes in the NFL.
I’m a liberal, but flush rush’s comment typifies the pc leftie thinking that makes me almost embarrassed to be a liberal. Now we have to politicize even sports? Liberals have to content themselves with girlie sports like soccer, while right wingers get to watch the fun stuff like football? I guess I didn’t receive that memo.
As to the alleged popularity of soccer, it’s always been played by lots of American kids, but most stop playing it when they finish high school since Americans do not support soccer as a pro sport. Soccer is a college sport, but it’s not a major college sport, and our best athletes go for football, basketball, baseball, or hockey. Basically, it’s kind of like darts. We play it, but we don’t take it seriously.
He’s responding to the all the comments made by conservative talk radio/TV hosts who said they don’t care about the World Cup as it’s socialist and unAmerican.
Seriously, stop calling this game soccer. It’s called football. Please refer to that incomprehensible game you call football as ‘gay rugby’. Cos that’s what it is.
“Eat it, rightwingers. All your complaints about soccer being a socialist sport are for naught. Just ask the 50 million American kids who play it. Oh, and sorry the games were so low-scoring as so many of your AM sports radio personalities have complained of. We know you pot-bellied peabrains have the attention spans of gnats. Keep watching Faux News and your steroid-freak heroes in the NFL.”
This is a joke, right? You’re going to draw a correlation between those who like soccer and their personal politics? The two teams in the Finals are led by politicians from the left and have Parliamentary governments. Soccer is the world’s game. That includes counties whose politics range from Socialist (China) to Conservative (Chile) to totalitarian (N. Korea). And yes, Obama’s America.
I am a registered Republican and I probably know more about soccer than you ever will. Nothing about your rant makes any sense. So the NFL (home of your “steroid freak heroes”) isn’t big in the blue states/cities? Ever been to a 49ers game, genius? Or a Lions game? Or a Seahawks game?
You’re an idiot.
I think the previous poster is responding to your boy Glenn Beck’s statement that he hates the world cup because “the rest of the world loves it so much.”
And every time the World Cup comes around, the usual gang of conservative xenophobes turns up on message boards, baiting those who love the game, and making the absurd assertion that if the United States were ever to take soccer seriously, they would dominate the sport.
Interesting that the conservatives would feel like that about soccer, considering the fact that the majority of American bred soccer players come from the American suburbs.
The right wingers who always call themselve good americans I wonder,if these people have any brains.They against everything that is good for America,because Soccer was not invented by United Sates.They consider it foreign while they don’t even see how good the mens soccer players are.They should know by now no one can stop american playing soccer in this country.I would like those brain less people soccer to stay in the 3 world cups to come that the U.S will be the winner of Worlcup 2018.Then what will they do they call the players socialist.There are millions of American mothers who take their children to play soccer every weekend in this country.The right wingers consider these mothers socialist also.
You are right Luis. I hate Glenn beck so much he sounded so evil saying that stuff about soccer. If people in America knew about all the juggling skills, freekicks, dribbling, tackles, all the amazing and interesting players, and most of all, club soccer.
That includes counties whose politics range from Socialist (China) to Conservative (Chile) to totalitarian (N. Korea). And yes, Obama’s America.
Fuck politics. It’s time for the US to have a great soccer team. There are very good american players playing in Europe: Donovan, Altidore, Bocanegra… When the US soccer team will start making some difference, american audiences will go nuts. Soccer is a great sport and US can’t be left behind. It’s a matter of time but, seriously, America should start playing with feet.
The political stuff came from the right-wingers who sadly seem to speak for the Republican Party these days. As reported in The New Yorker this week…
“I hate it so much, probably because the rest of the world likes it so much,” Glenn Beck, the Fox News star, proclaimed. (Also, “Barack Obama’s policies are the World Cup.”) What really bugs “silly leftist critics,” the Washington Times editorialized, is that “the most popular sports in America—football, baseball, and basketball—originated here in the Land of the Free.” At the Web site of the American Enterprise Institute, the Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen, formerly a speechwriter for George W. Bush, wrote, “Soccer is a socialist sport.” Also, “Soccer is collectivist.” Also, “Perhaps in the age of President Obama, soccer will finally catch on in America. But I suspect that socializing Americans’ taste in sports may be a tougher task than socializing our healthcare system.” And then there’s G. Gordon Liddy. Soccer, Liddy informed his radio listeners, “…comes from Latin America, and first we have to get into this term, the Hispanics. That would indicate Spanish language, and yes, these people in Latin America speak Spanish. That is because conquistadores who came over from Spain—you know, tall Caucasians, not very many of them—conquered the Indians, and the Indians adopted the language of their conquerors. But what we call Hispanics now really are South American Indians. And this game, I think, originated with the South American Indians, and instead of a ball they used to use the head, the decapitated head, of an enemy warrior.”
Liddy’s guest, a conservative “media critic” named Dan Gainor, responded cautiously (“soccer is such a basic game, you can probably trace its origins back a couple of different ways”), while allowing that “the whole Hispanic issue” is among the reasons “the left” is “pushing it in schools around the country.”
Americans just don’t get football (it shouldn’t be called soccer, as football is actually played with your feet, unlike American “football”). The rest of the world however does.
The finale was watched by 700 million people worldwide. Total viewing figures of the WC were a staggering 5,9 billion. The Superbowl can’t touch it.
I can’t stand Glen Beck. He’s no more my “boy” than Ralph Nader is yours…
Quick question… Does anyone know how Nielsen handles those watching the game in bars? Or do sporting events tend to get under reported in this regards? Most of the people I know watched the final at a bar and almost all (including myself) reported that it was standing room only. And they weren’t at English/Irish pubs, they were at your average bar.