From Zap2it: http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,272|||sports2,00.html Sorted for total viewers, the US vs Arg match was the 4th highest rated sports broadcast of the week 6/25 - 7/1. Note the viewerships for other Copa matches. Speaks for itself, I think........ I've posted this info to the "Soccer in the USA" Forum as well because of its broad implications.
Argentina vs USA pfffft Look at the Mexico vs Ecuador game. It has to be the first time a non world cup game led in the tv ratings for the week.
What it shows is that the Spanish-language market for the USNT is almost equal to that for the Mexican National team in the US. Mexico was on Univision as well, which reaches many many more homes than Telefutura. This is consistent with the World Cup ratings on Univision where the US got a massive viewership, especially fror the game against Italy. This of course means that these stations should be spending much more time focusing on US Soccer, but I don't expect that to happen at all since they are still horribly biased.
I don't find the bias nearly as much as b4 '02. And Univision/Telefutura do quite a bit of coverage of USMNT and MLS, especially now that they have the contract for Sunday MLS games. I'm kinda suprised that there's not more info about Copa America ratings on these boards.
WTF? I disagree with you there. The Univision family has embraced MLS and the USMNT. They do criticize, but I don't see that as bias.
Here's some more Copa ratings info (week of July 2 - 8)... http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,272|||sports,00.html If you sort by total viewers, the numbers look mighty impressive for Copa on Univision... Top Sports Events: Total Viewers 1 COPA AMERICA 2007 15 UNI(S)-07/04/2007 MEXICO VS CHILE UNI 4,589,000 2 WIMBLEDON UPDATE-WED(S)-07/04/2007 NBC 4,276,000 3 FRIDAY NIGHT SMACKDOWN 4,197,000 4 WIMBLEDON UPDATE-MON(S)-07/02/2007 NBC 4,181,000 5 WIMBLEDON UPDATE-THU(S)-07/05/2007 NBC 11:35 PM 4,079,000 6 COPA AMERICA 2007 21 UNI(S)-07/08/2007 MEXICO VS PARAGUAY UNI 3,981,000 7 WIMBLEDON TENNIS-SUN(S)-07/08/2007 NBC 3,753,000 8 AT&T NATIONAL-SUN(S)-07/08/2007 CBS 3,615,000 9 FOX SATURDAY BASEBALL FOX 3,508,000 10 WIMBLEDON UPDATE-FRI(S)-07/06/2007 NBC 3,436,000 11 WIMBLEDON TENNIS-WED(S)-07/04/2007 NBC 3,224,000 12 COPA AMERICA 2007 22 UNI(S)-07/08/2007 ARGENTINA VS PERU UNI 3,082,000 13 WIMBLEDON TENNIS-SAT(S)-07/07/2007 NBC 3,056,000 14 AT&T NATIONAL-SAT(S)-07/07/2007 CBS 2,630,000
The flaw in your thinking of course is that a lot of people watched the USA v Argentina match because Argentina was playing (similar reasoning explains the ratings for USA v Italy). The USA v Paraguay match would be a better measuring-stick for comparing the popularity of USA compared to Mexico in the spanish-language market
There's a figure now available for the Mexico vs Argentina semifinal. From E! Online: http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=cd553892-b395-4298-be77-60c0fd7afd74