Fox Soccer received an audience of just over 950 thousand viewers and gained a rating of 1.43 for the USA-Mexico Gold Cup Final game on Saturday. Combined with the Univision numbers, you had a total audience of almost 9 million people watching soccer on a dead night for TV (or so the networks would have you believe). That’s quite an impressive number. And the ratings are up almost double from the last Gold Cup Final in 2009 which received a 0.77 rating.
Fox Soccer says Saturday’s viewership beats the previous high of 418,000 viewers for an English Premier League game earlier this year. We have the press release from Fox Soccer.
U.S. – MEXICO GOLD CUP FINAL CRUSHES AUDIENCE RECORD ON FOX SOCCER
Telecast DOUBLES the network’s previous viewership and ratings records
Los Angeles (June 28, 2011) – FOX Soccer drew the largest audience in its history during Mexico’s decisive 4-2 defeat of the United States in the CONCACAF Gold Cup final on Saturday, June 25, 2011. According to figures released by Nielsen Media Research, 954,000 viewers watched FOX Soccer’s U.S-Mexico telecast, by far a new FOX Soccer record and the most-watched soccer match on English language cable television since the 2010 World Cup. The telecast more than doubles FOX Soccer’s previous record of 418,000 viewers for this year’s Chelsea vs. Liverpool “Game Before the Game” pre-Super Bowl telecast on February 6, 2011.
US-Mexico delivered a 1.43 household coverage area rating, becoming the first FOX Soccer telecast in the network’s history to break a 1.0. The 1.43 nearly doubles FOX Soccer’s previous record HH rating of 0.77 for the 2009 Gold Cup final between the same two countries.
“The US-Mexico CONCACAF Gold Cup final was a must see event for American sports fans,” said FOX Soccer General Manager David Nathanson. “Breaking our viewership record twice in one year speaks to not only the growth of soccer in the United States, but also to the destination FOX Soccer has become in carrying the world’s biggest soccer events.”
The Gold Cup final also delivered record ratings for FOX Soccer in the coveted M18-49 demo, earning a 1.65/383,000 and in the 18-34 year old demo, earning a 1.64 or 194,000 viewers, making it FOX Soccer’s highest key male audience of all time and beating network competitors ABC, CBS and NBC in impressions in that age group from 8:30 – 11:00 p.m. ET.
That’s going to do it.
