The assertion that the undisputed most popular league is Liga MX has to be under question at this point. The EPL is very much in the discussion.
Club América / Tigres TUDN: 545000 Leagues Cup Cruz Azul / Los Angeles Galaxy TUDN: 419000 I don't even have the ESPN numbers for those, but just in Spanish those numbers are pretty huge! The tournament has been iffy on the field, but the ratings make it a roaring success.
Meanwhile CONCACAF league is a complete flop on TUDN. CONCACAF League Alianza / Tauro TUDN: 63000 CONCACAF League Forge FC / Olimpia TUDN: 19000 CONCACAF League Waterhouse / Herediano TUDN: 7000
I definitely think the EPL is a big player (so I wouldn't disagree with your general premise), but keep in mind that we usually only post cable ratings here. The OTA audiences that Liga MX gets on Univision and Telemundo are usually hovering around the 1-million viewers mark.
When Liga MX goes on over the air TV they get big numbers (Univision or Unimas). In July (from July 9th to the 31th) in terms of soccer game ratings, you see Liga MX all over the top 10 http://worldsoccertalk.com/2019/08/10/watched-soccer-games-us-tv-july-9-31-2019/
I always use WST which includes OTA. My assertion stands. It's close, but I think EPL has the slight edge, or at worst is tied at this point. And you have to remember, the EPL plays games at very awkward times so it gets some bonus points
No, I agree. It's pretty close nowadays. And my casual monitoring of the numbers leads me to believe EPL's average is a little higher while LigaMX's cumulative audience is likely bigger (they have more inventory). I think the morning/mid-morning EPL schedule actually helps EPL in some ways, though. Namely, when one chooses to watch EPL in the morning, the competition from other live sports is basically non-existent (with the exception of F1, maybe). If you choose to watch MLS or LigaMX, you're basically choosing NOT to watch MLB, NHL, NBA, NFL, College Football/Basketball, etc. So while EPL may lose a few people who like to sleep in on the weekend, they're probably gaining a few curiosity viewers who just want to see live sports.
I'm surprised they can even meter the audience for the last match. 7K in a national sample is pretty tiny.
Haven’t they gotten past the stupid pay people to register what they are watching to just monitoring via the internet?
In the old days Nielsen families kept a diary of what they watched. Nowdays cable companies can tell what channel the tvs in a house are tuned to and I believe can tell if they are turned on or not.
Beats me, I'm not a Nielsen rater. Maybe the data is useful because it shows how many people watched a show.
Nielsen's diaries, or the equivalent, are still in use, but the data is also available from cable operators, Nielsen just has to pay for it and I'm not sure they are willing to.
Nielsen does obtain data from the major providers, but still does its own sampled panels as well. It needs the panels to represent for the whole universe of TV viewers, pulling in antenna viewers and people with obscure local cable companies, etc. The panels are also used to construct the demographic breakdowns, as they track viewing patterns of different people within a household. The data is obtained from boxes that Nielsen installs onto the TVs in the participating homes, no more paper diaries.
I know with things like SlingTV you can opt in or out of nielsen ratings. I would think cable companies would have to tell you if they are tracking you watching habits especially with all the privacy laws now but could be wrong.
US privacy laws are pretty weak, especially compared to something like GDPR in the EU. People think of things like "my" bank records, phone records, viewing habits, etc as personal but those are actually owned by the businesses you patronize and they are usually free to sell them to big data brokers. Personally I drew the line when they started asking for my phone number when I walk in to the hair cut place. What's really egregious are the companies like Google which track you even if you don't use their products.
The week's most watched soccer match was once again an EPL match, though it took 2 channels to beat Univion's Cruz Azul - Chivas match. (EPL match which was Arsenal vs Tottenham was on NBCSN and Telemundo while the Liga MX match was only on Univision) Meanwhile UCL qualifying in Spanish is not doing well. The highest rated match was watched by 45000 (Ajax vs APEL)
https://variety.com/2019/tv/news/out-of-home-audiences-nielsen-tv-ratings-2020-1203328231/#article-comments Big news Nielsen will combine (OOH) Out of Home and Liner TV viewing as one. It's been talked about but will finally happen and become the industry standard moving forward this will be big for MLS. Last year in 2018 MLS averaged 241k on Linear ESPN networks down from the prior year average of 261k, however ESPN noted that when they averaged Out of Home viewing viewership the average was up nearly 13% year over year giving MLS a combined 294,000 average on ESPN last year. That's roughly a quarter (22%) of MLS seasonal audience on ESPN last year coming via Out of Home Viewing i.e watching at bar/airport/gym/restaurant/friends home. It trends with what many of us have said all along that soccer numbers have always been miscalculated because of the type of younger viewers who watch MLS are on the go and aren't the type of older viewer who is gonna be a typical nielsen viewer. This can be seen from with MLS games this year on a numerous caging trending in the top 10 on US twitter with even one game the LAFC vs Galaxy game trending #1 on twitter during and after the game. That sort of thing usually only happens and is reserved for a Big 4 US sports game that has over 1 million viewers in the TV ratings. That game only had 462,000 viewers across cable TV, despite trending #1 on twitter that night; which goes to show numbers currently and years past were undercut. Soccer IMO will benefit more from this change than any sport.