Yes, it's sufficient to have some Mexican-Americans who are legit US citizens rooting against us, and they'll count as Americans against the USMNT. We do have this phenomenon here of playing home games with a domestic crowd rooting against us, especially in the Southern and West Coast cities with heavy Hispanic presence. It's not like this in all cities, though, and support for the USMNT is getting a nice foothold in may places like Seattle, Salt Lake City, etc.
I don't think that's a great comparison. It certainly doesn't tell us anything about the relative popularity of soccer versus basketball in this country. The NBA playoffs have limited appeal for people outside of the two cities involved.
Well, if it has limited appeal, that's a lower level of popularity, or at the very least, if no good indication of popularity, at least it is an indication of passion. Me, I watch soccer even when my preferred teams are not involved.
No, you're comparing apples and oranges. US-Ghana is something that might be of interest to people all over the country. On the other hand, Miami-San Antonio is of limited appeal to people who don't have a rooting interest. But all of the objective criteria show that basketball is more popular than soccer in the US. If you wanted to compare something similar, you might look at a game like Colombia-Greece today. Sure, some people in the US watched it, but the TV ratings were likely low in this country. And "passion" is way too subjective.
The match registered a 7.0 overnight rating on ESPN, good for second-highest rating for a group stage match on record in the United States. And that's not counting the 1.4 million who watched via WatchESPN. The number one match of all-time? USA vs. England in 2010, which got a 7.5 overnight rating. However, that game was on network TV (ABC) and it aired on a Saturday. Let's not forget the numbers on Univision either, as there was an average of 3.8 million tuning in on Spanish-language television. http://www.mlssoccer.com/worldcup/2...hana-second-highest-group-stage-match-ever-us
Someone in the linked article tweeted: Anybody talking about the average 3.7m viewers for WC on ESPN needs to include the average 3.8m on Univision to get total U.S. audience.
No. Ratings are the percentage of all tv households that watched a particular show. There are about 116 million TV homes in the U.S.. So a 7.0 rating would be 8.1 million homes.
People are using different numbers. That 16 million for the NBA finals is the guess at the number of viewers, not households. The rating for the NBA final was a 10.3. That is very similar to the combined ESPN/Univision rating of 7.0 + 3.0 for a 10.
USA-Ghana averaged US TV audience of 15.9 million (ESPN/Univ), just shy of WC10 for USA-ENG 17.3M & USA-GHA 19.7M http://t.co/o9HNAlcyeA— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) June 17, 2014 Not sure if it includes ESPN's online viewership.
And I just read this on SBI: Univision’s online stream drew 1.7 million live streams. So, 3.1 million online viewers, plus 15.9 million ESPN/Univision viewers... 19 million viewers watched that match (a not-even-prime-time Monday 1st round match)? The other top two watched matches were on ABC on a Saturday afternoon. Sunday could be a big one...
That 2010 USA-ENG game was on ABC. The USA-GHANA match on Monday was on ESPN. We are not comparing apples to apples here.
This is exactly right and is the real number. 19 million... on a Monday 6 PM. this is impressive and anybody who still thinks soccer is not popular in America is a moron. This MUST SEE video compilation will put any silly idea that Americans don't like soccer to rest, and will shut up the "who cares, it's just soccer!" crowd. Well, these Americans do care:
Darn, why was that video compilation removed from YouTube? It was just images of American soccer fans cheering the team during the Ghana game. WTF? Anyway, whoever had the time to see it was in for a treat. Too bad it was removed.
Final viewership figures for USA vs. Ghana, considering all four sources (sometimes people forget to add them up): more than 19 million spectators, on ESPN, Univision, WatchESPN.com and app, UnivisionDeportes.com and app. This topples every game of the NBA final series, and it was on a Monday late afternoon in the East Coast and mid-afternoon in the West Coast, out of prime time TV. Most likely this Sunday's USA vs. Portugal will top that, given that people won't be stuck at work or commuting from work.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...oved-to-balbo-avenue-20140622,0,7362375.story http://nypost.com/2014/06/23/new-yorkers-have-high-hopes-for-team-usa-after-world-cup-tie/
The TV/online numbers from USA-Portugal: And on Monday afternoon we found out the actual number of people that watched the match, over 24 million. Over 18 million people watched the match on ESPN, while 6.5 million watched the match on Univision. The combined number is larger than the total audience that watched the 1999 Women's World Cup Final, the previous record holder. Not even included in this number is the over one million people who watched the match on WatchESPN. 24.5 million on cable TV 1.373 million on ESPN online Haven't seen the Univision online number. At least 25.8 million Americans saw the game.
Interesting article in grauniad... http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/jun/23/world-cup-soccer-interest-mainstream