Chelsea, ManU Top BPL Match For ESPN2 526,000 Viewers Watch Blues Move Atop Table Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 4/7/2010 4:43:24 PM http://www.multichannel.com/article...akingNews+(Multichannel+News+-+Breaking+News) Chelsea's big win Saturday put it atop the Barclays Premier table and ranked as ESPN2's top match with the English futbol circuit to date. The Blues' 2-1 win over Manchester United on April 3, which kicked off on ESPN2 at 7:30 a.m., averaged a 0.4 household rating and 526,000 viewers, according to Nielsen data. Those performances easily surpassed the 0.3 average and 398,000 for the network's erstwhile Nielsen leader with the BPL: the Aug. 24, 2009 match between Liverpool and Aston Villa. ESPN2, which gained the BPL rights through a sublicensing deal from Fox Soccer Channel that were previously assigned to the now defunct Setanta Sports U.S., has seven more matches from the circuit on tap this season.
maybe one day MLS will attract something close to top flight talent and get somewhere. that game in primetime probably gets 1 million viewers....and the game is not only on American soil, it has no affiliation to the States. yet our domestic league....nm
Good ratings for ESPN, but Telemundo got 3m for The America vs Chivas clasico. If the MLS ever want to see this type of ratings, they need to bring in the league to a competitive level. They need to win a major international tournament, a great marketing campaign, and work hard on their farm system.
Like Mexico has that Clasico between Guadalajara and América, i think MLS needs a similar large scale heated rivalry that captures attention outside the local markets. Its still good to see viewership numbers exceed records though.
The ratings usually show LIVE+SD DVR numbers (meaning, within that 24 hours)...However, it will not include LIVE+SD + 7-DAY DVR. I assume, that on the East coast, the averages were probably higher in some big cities like NY, Boston, Washington DC, Atlanta and Philadelphia. But, the west coast and mountain areas brought the averages low due to the starting time being in the early hours of Saturday. I also think the ratings probably kept inching higher later on in the morning (the last 30 minutes of the match probably had a higher rating than the national average).