Business

USA-Belgium nearly sets World Cup ratings record for ESPN

While the US team lost to Belgium in its final World Cup performance, the match was a big TV ratings winner for ESPN – but surprisingly not its biggest.

The broadcast’s workday time slot meant ESPN’s coverage of US-Belgium was only the second most watched World Cup game so far.

ESPN said 16.49 million viewers caught the Tuesday’s nailbiter, failing to top the USA-Portugal game, which drew 18.22 million viewers. That game aired on a Sunday evening.

Despite a valiant effort by American goalie Tim Howard, the US lost 2-1 in extra time to the tiny European country best known for brewing frothy beer and crafting luxury chocolate.

TV coverage peaked during the final 15 minutes of the regulation, from 5:45 to 6 p.m. New York time, drawing a 14.1 rating.

TV viewing was at its highest in the New York area — the top local metered market — followed by Hartford/New Haven and Washington, DC, according to Nielsen.

The network’s sister online streaming service, WatchESPN, attracted an average per minute audience of 1.1 million viewers. The Disney-owned network average 3.5 million unique viewers across the broadcast.
ESPN has seen household ratings jump by 44 percent over the same point in the 2010 World Cup. The network is averaging four million viewers through the 56 combined telecasts on ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC.

Meanwhile, it appears viewers were so glued to their TV sets they likely spent less time on social media.

Twitter said US-Belgium ranked as the fourth-most tweeted World Cup match, with 9.1 million tweets. It trailed far behind Brazil-Chile at 16.4 million, which beat the 2014 Super Bowl in terms of the highest number of tweets per minute.

The tournament opener of Brazil-Croatia (12.2 million) and this Sunday’s Netherlands-Mexico match (9.2 million) also surpassed the US match in Twitter volume.

Univision’s coverage in Spanish won some five million viewers while its stream drew an additional 1.8 unique users, according to company data. Univision is curtailing its free streaming coverage of the World Cup and limiting it to those who can prove they are pay-TV subscribers as of July 4.