1.35 million total viewers watch Survival Sunday on all platforms... According to Fox Sports, ESPN2 had the most viewers with 600,000 for the dramatic Manchester City-Queens Park Rangers game which saw ManCity eke out a win with two goals in stoppage time to win the EPL title. On Fox Sports platforms which utilized Fox Soccer, Fox Soccer Plus, Fox Sports Net, Fuel, FX and Speed, the audience registered at 392,000 viewers. The most viewers were on FX which carried Sunderland-Manchester United (161,000). For Fox Deportes, the channel saw 167,000 viewers while ESPN Deportes which also carried the ManCity-QPR match, it had 189,000. Some more details.. The English language audience on the FOX-outlets (392,000) and ESPN2 (600,000) combined for 992,000 viewers, up +80% over the combined viewing on ESPN2 and FOX Soccer a year ago (550,000). English-language viewership on FOX outlets (392,000) was +160% vs. 2011 (151,000). The breakdown is as follows: FX – 161,000; FOX Soccer – 77,000; SPEED – 53,000; FSN – 59,000; FUEL TV – 42,000. Spanish Breakdown: FOX Deportes recorded 167,000 viewers Sunday, +120% over a year ago (76,000); ESPN Deportes drew 189,000 viewers. Online: FOXSoccer.com and FOX Soccer 2Go combined for 41,522 live video streams
Personally I think the PL should have put the Arsenal, Tottenham and Newcastle games as well as the inconsequential games on Saturday or on a different time on Sunday.
The overtime game and extending till late into the evening hours should help the final ratings for the UEFA Champions League Final. I'm expecting to see a Final rating of about 1.2-1.4 (down from 1.6 from last year on FOX). Anything over that, it will be a total surprise. The game more than likely peaked around 5:00 PM (EST) and leading towards the next 30 minutes.
The thrilling UEFA Champions League Final got a 1.3 in the overnight ratings on FOX. Up 10% vs. 2010, but down a couple notches from last year. The Final rating will probably round-up to a 1.0-1.1, meaning about 1.6-1.7 million viewers. We should have an official press release shortly with Fox Deportes numbers as well.
I guess one of the positives from this is that Americans get more exposure to the "other" decent teams in Europe. I don't think it is a good thing that only 3-4 European club teams will draw high numbers in the USA. It's too much of a gamble since there will be many years where the final isn't Man United vs Barcelona or something involving well known teams. The more teams that get exposure here, the better. Some people don't believe me, but I think a Chelsea vs Bayern final actually is better for long term ratings growth of the UCL on FOX. Of course, if RM and Barcelona played in this years final, the ratings would be much higher, but would also set the bar way too high, and the subsequent years will likely see big ratings drop. btw, a 1.3 rating is not bad at all, and probably has a better demographic that most other sporting events. Lots of baseball games would get over a 3.0 rating but less than 1.0 in the 18-49 age demographic. I think anything between 1.0-1.5 is a realistic goal for most average UCL finals, not involving super clubs.
The MLS not-so-"superclasico" between LA Galaxy and Chivas USA on ESPN2 got an 0.1% household rating, according to Michael Hiestand of USA Today (who has been shooting at MLS before the league kicked its first ball in 1996.) http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/index#.T7qidVKYSZd Hiestand: "The good news for MLS: Ratings only go down to zero." 0.1% household rating may have be an ALL-TIME-LOW for an MLS match on ESPN2. -- Just like college basketball, BRANDS DO MATTER with televised soccer in the U.S. Not ever product is equal. David Beckham is no longer a draw in the U.S. market. MLS is becoming the Southland/SWAC/WAC of soccer television: 0.1% household rating and median age above 40.
They probably heard Max Bretos voice and turned off. Adrian Healey was away in Munich for the Champions league final with Robbie Mustoe
Come on.....it was LA vs Chivas. Did you not see the ratings for this exact same match-up last year? It was horrible and it was completely idiotic for whoever controls scheduling to air this game again. I'm surprised it even got 0.1. I tuned out after about 10 min. and I can tolerate a lot of crappy soccer. Galaxy fans hardly tune in, and definitely wouldn't tune into a game vs Chivas. And of course Chivas fans probably contributed less than 10,000 viewers to that total. Pretty stupid to judge a whole league on the rating of a single crap match (which seems to happen a lot in these "anti-MLS" articles). This game was never gonna get higher than 200K viewers no matter what. Overall, the ratings for MLS have been decent compared to last year.
A little exaggerated and not true. Plus, I'd like to know where you got the median age of 40 statistic from. Is that the overall median, or did you just get that from one match? I'd be willing to bet that the EPL only gets it's young demographic because the games air so early in the day. It will peak eventually since games in the European time zone can only get so far in the USA tv ratings wise.
It was competing against NBA Playoffs (which actually got a 2.9 overnight rating), and NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs on NBC. The game was also competing with the start of the Preakness coverage. The NBA playoff on ABC was one of the lowest in years: perhaps UEFA Final took some of the viewers away from ABC. No official press release at this time from FOX Sports.
The Top Markets amongst 56 cities for the UEFA Champions League Final: Miami and Austin, Texas, tied for the highest rating at 2.6, followed by Dallas (2.2), and Washington D.C. and New York (each 2.1). Assumptions: The big international Soccer events always do good in the big cities. The extra time for overtime and penalties helped. I would imagine the game probably peaked around 1.6-1.8 during the last hour (at 5:00 pm EST) in the overnight ratings. Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/soccer/05/21/champions.league.tv.ap/index.html#ixzz1vc3UrSLD
AP's Ronald Blum took the FOX Sports press release (from Lou D'Ermilio) and re-wrote it: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/soccer/05/24/champions.league.ratings.ap/index.html FOX is now pushing the 18-34 demo in soccer-related press releases. That's the one edge big-time international club soccer has over many U.S. sports. -- Serie A did not sell. Ligue 1 did not sell. No surprise to see FOX walk away when Qatar Media went crazy (by paying $25 million/season for a Serie A product that averaged 54,000 viewers per match.) The Fox Soccer cable network said it averaged 185,000 viewers for its 118 live Premier League telecasts this season, about the same as 184,000 for 112 matches in 2010-11. Fox averaged 54,000 for its 96 live Serie A broadcasts this year and 53,000 for its four Ligue 1 showings. Its one live Scottish Premier League match, between Glasgow Celtic and Rangers, had 86,000 viewers. Among individual English clubs, Manchester United averaged 266,000 viewers for 20 live games, Manchester City 218,000 for 22, Arsenal 215,000 for 16, Liverpool 208,000 for 11, Chelsea 194,000 for 21 and Tottenham 185,000 for 18.
The 3 #UCLFinals broadcast on FOX have averaged 2,049,000 viewers, +676% audience increase since 2002 (264K). #UEFA @FOXSoccer #UCLFinal was +25% in audience (2 million vs. 1.6 million) compared to '10 game featuring Bayern Munich (vs. Inter-Milan). #UEFA @FOXSoccer #UCLFinal viewing peaked during extra time and PKs. 5:00-5:30 1/2-hour posted 2.4 mill viewers. Last 3 minutes delivered 2.5 million. #UEFA No release from FOX Deportes...(i'm still guessing 800K-900K, anything over will be a total surprise) Combined audience will be around 3 million (peaking to 3.5 million-4 million during the last 30 minutes when combined) The Encore did 210K on Fox Soccer on the same night...A record number for an encore telecast for the UEFA Final... 2 million is a very solid number, and especially with great Demos, beating NHL playoffs, and almost on par with NBA playoffs on ABC.
I predicted 1.8 million +/- 200000 viewers. Close enough. Original press release from Lou D'Ermilio: http://tvbythenumbers.zap2it.com/20...al-on-fox-is-second-most-watched-ever/135730/
Some key reminders About US Soccer... The 2010 World Cup Cycle: During the 2010 World Cup cycle, US Soccer games averaged about 730K on ESPN, and about 750K on ESPN2 (I'm rounding the numbers a little). During the 2014 cycle, I expect these numbers to go up again by 20%-30%. The Friendlies: The US vs. Scotland should pull the highest rated soccer game to date on NBCS. I expect 0.3-0.4 for the ratings (450K-600K viewers). The US vs. Canada should pull 0.3 rating with about 400K viewers. The US vs. Brazil on ESPN2/Galavision should pull another decent number. The last friendly between the two countries attracted about 800K+ on ESPN2. This time around I expect the ratings to reach between 900K-1 Million on ESPN2. We could see numbers reaching as high as 1.1 million on ESPN2. Galavision will pull about 200k-250k viewers for this friendly match. The World Cup Qualifiers: On June 8th ( a rare tripple header on ESPN for Soccer), the US World Cup qualifier should pull a decent number. Since the match-up is not that intriguing, it should still pull about 700K on ESPN because of the overflow traffic from the Euros. We could see numbers as high as 800K. Anything over 800k+ will be a total surprise.
Some ratings update... The US vs. Scotland did about 225K viewers on NBCSN and about 144K on Galavision. This is the highest rated soccer match on the NBCSN to date. The MLS matches didn't do good at all. I assume the Memorial Day weekend effected the ratings. MLS numbers: Galaxy-Dynamo drew 71K viewers to NBCSN Sat. And San Joes-KC brought 53K viewers to NBCSN on Sun. (Source John Ourand)...This is for the whole match, and not the match-window..
Updated Ratings news... The US vs. Brazil pulled about 1.2 million viewers on ESPN2....It was the highest rated US soccer game (friendly) since 2002 on ESPN. This is a great number. It met my high-end expectation. If anything, this bodes well for the EUROs on ESPN2. We don't have any numbers from the Spanish platform. I can wait for next year's World Cup qualifier between US vs. Mexico...We will see another record breaking numbers for US soccer (World Cup qualifiers matches)....
Expect the Mexico vs USA WCQ match from Estadio Azteca to be on UnivisionABC News 24/7 via free preview if the channel has launched by then. Can't buy a marketing opportunity like that at any price.
From John Ourand of Sports Business Journal via Twitter @Ourand_SBJ: USMNT TV numbers from last week: US-Brazil on ESPN2 Wed had 1.13M viewers; US-Canada on NBC Sports Network Sun had 545K viewers. https://twitter.com/Ourand_SBJ/status/210095871520538624 (No data available for US-Brazil on Galavision. Don't know if US-Canada on UDN has ratings info because UDN is a new channel.) Being on NBC Sports Network did not hurt much at all. Canada-USA was always going to draw a smaller TV audience because Canada doesn't sell.
Grant Wahl (@GrantWahl) 6/5/12 6:49 PM Mexico-Brazil soccer averages 3.3M audience in US on Univision. Big number, higher than Stanley Cup finals so far (2.9M).
The Stanley Cup Final is a total flop on NBC so far... Game 2 of the Kings/Devils Stanley Cup Final drew a 1.7 final rating and 2.9 million viewers on NBC Saturday night, down 23% in ratings and 18% in viewership from Bruins/Canucks Game 2 last year (2.2, 3.569M), and down 49% and 51%, respectively, from Flyers/Blackhawks Game 2 on Memorial Day in 2010 (3.3, 5.892M) On the Soccer side, The US vs Canada number is way over my expectations. Pulling about 550K is a very strong number for a US vs. Canada game. US Men's soccer matches continue to trend higher. The 1.2 million on ESPN2 for a a friendly was very impressive... The ratings for the EUROs should be impressive. On a side note, Mexico vs. Bosnia pulled 2.9 million on Univision.
The US World Cup Qualifier against A&B pulled 0.4 in ratings with 900K viewers on ESPN. This is higher than the average ESPN/ESPN2 pulled during the WC 2010 cycle. This is great number for a match that was not even compelling. During the 2010 cycles, ESPN2 was pulling about 750K and ESPN pulled 725K. This means the average is going to go much higher as we proceed with the qualification process and with better match-ups. During the 2014 WC cycle, the US Men's game could increase by 30% or so.
This week we have a marquee MLS match on ESPN. The game is going to be sandwiched between a Quarterfinal Euro 2012 match and Sunday Night Baseball. The Portland vs. Seattle could become the highest rated MLS game for this season, and with a good possibility of becoming the highest rated MLS regular season game ever on ESPN (excluding MLS CUP, MLS All Stars). We could see numbers around 800K on ESPN. The Quarterfinal match will involve Italy playing either France, or England, or Ukraine. An Italy vs England should add more viewers. The Quarterfinal match could bring about 2.5-3 million viewers on ESPN (it should be the highest rated Euro match to date). But, as we know, it is hard to predict MLS ratings (It trades like a Penny stock...very volatile and unpredictable)