FOX Broadcasting Company scored a hit on Sunday for their first-ever broadcast of a Premier League game. The match between Manchester United and Chelsea generated a 1.0 household rating with 1.6 million viewers, while 456,000 watched the live broadcast of the game on FOX Soccer earlier that day, and an impressive 430,000 watched the game live on FOX Deportes.

In total, the combined audience was 2,486,000 viewers, according to figures released today by Nielsen Media Research.

The record-setting tape-delayed Premier League match on FOX is second in total audience to this year’s LIVE UEFA Champions League Final, also on FOX and FOX Deportes (4.2 million for FC Barcelona vs. Manchester United), and its total audience of 2.5 million eclipsed that of the LIVE 2010 Champions League Final on FOX and FOX Sports en Español (2.2 million for Inter Milan – Bayern Munich) and the 2009 match between Manchester United and Barcelona (2.1 million) on ESPN.

The top-10 markets for FOX Sports taped-delayed Chelsea at Manchester United match: New Orleans (10.2); Raleigh-Durham (3.7); Greensboro (3.3); Richmond (2.8); Birmingham (2.6); Washington, DC (2.6); Greenville, SC (2.4); Memphis (2.4); Charlotte (2.2); Louisville (2.2); and Pittsburgh (2.2).