From the numbers I have seen in the thread within the Business in media board if you combine the English and Spanish channels there were more views of the USA-Mexico in the USA. If you want to argue it that would be the board to do it in.
Dude, is not an argument. Game 6 Averages Total Audience Delivery of 7.086 Million Viewers, TV-Only Audience Peaks with Nearly 9.5 Million Viewers http://nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com/2...final-on-record-without-an-original-six-team/ https://www.sportsnews24.com/nhl-ho...tched-final-record-without-original-six-team/ USA/MEX 6.8 million combined. Now perhaps the game was also on Univision deportes and that may put the soccer game over the top. Fast national numbers for USA-Mexico qualifier: Univision/UDN averaged 4.5 million viewers. Best soccer audience for 2017. FS1 = 2.3 million— Austin Karp (@AustinKarp) June 12, 2017
Actually it appears that no, the 4.5 million combines both Univision and UDN. So 6.8 million is the total for the soccer game. http://corporate.univision.com/corp...2&hootPostID=40b1124f083872823189da38d69fd4f1
The audience peak for the Hockey match was 9.5 million according to that info. The audience peak for FOX +Univision/UDN was more than that according to the business and media board post.
The numbers are roughly equal. One was on a major network, one was on a cable channel. One was the deciding championship game. One was a preliminary to the championship; but included the Mexican national team. It would have been interesting to see what the numbers would be like if it was on the main Fox channel. If you look at USMNT and USWNT (and probably El Tri) World Cup numbers, they dwarf both of these numbers. The World Cup, which is the Stanley Cup of international soccer, involving US teams has recently been 20+ million average viewers. Better than World Series baseball, Stanley Cup hockey, and just about everything but NFL.
Ratings are measured differently according to the company doing the measuring. They have reach, penetration, rating, incidence, and I don't know what other specialized words that sometimes mean all the same, sometimes completely different things. There's one that is about people engaged in the event for more than N minutes, another for those who tuned in even if it was only for a second, and yet another for all the people the event can potentially reach (i.e., where the channels broadcasting it are available). That's why the Tour de France, the FIFA World Cup, the Cricket World Cup, the Summer Olympics, the Superbowl and the rugby Six Nations Championship all claim to have the biggest global TV audience; it depends on what method they're using.
Forget the ratings comparison, I'd like to know why soccer and hockey are both ignored by sports media. Even baseball gets little attention. There are basically two seasons of sports coverage-football from July to March and basketball the other three months. If you look at TV ratings, basketball has sunk since the 90's. In terms of favorite sport status, in 2014 basketball was tied with hockey and soccer. I can mention a dozen morning sports shows that won't even mention the Confederations Cup or the Gold Cup this summer but will talk for three hours on the basketball draft or NFL preseason. So of course the ratings will suffer.
I think you have to think of sports radio with this question,"who still listens to commercial radio." If you contrast that with the question, "who listens to podcasts or streaming services;" you will probably get the answer as to why sports radio is dominated by NFL and NCAA football. The other relevant question, many times, is: "how old and what race is the sports radio host"... I was once told by a hockey fan, a particularly grumpy one, that hockey is popular enough to get on TV, why would he want it more popular? That would just make it more difficult to get or afford tickets to games. With the amount of soccer on TV, from what I hear the U.S. has more soccer on TV than almost anywhere, and USSF with plenty of money, it really doesn't need to be any more popular. But we all feel part of the underdog story that is soccer in the USA and we want it to be the most important sport.